


It Will Be Better This Time

by Milk_and_Egg



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Atlas CEO Rhys, Jack is dead and not at the same time but not in the AI kind of way, M/M, Promise that this isn't one of those Rhys is a helpless baby and Jack owns him kind of fic, Rating will eventually change, Rhys is Handsome Jack's Personal Assistant, Slow Burn, Tags added as story goes, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Yeah the tags are confusing just read it, apocalypse but not really, kind of enemies to friends to lovers, using sirens to do my bullshit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2020-02-29 17:17:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18782671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Milk_and_Egg/pseuds/Milk_and_Egg
Summary: The universe is falling apart. The only way to save it is to have Rhys go back in time and stop Handsome Jack from opening the vault (by violently murdering him in his office) and saving his daughter in the process, but can Rhys actually kill him and save Angel?AKA: Both you and I have read the PA Rhys fics and the Atlas CEO Rhys fics, but what if I want a story that has both? AND sort of follows canon at the same time? Well now we have it.(Written before Borderlands 3 came out, so if any new information is revealed about any existing character in Borderlands 3 and/or any DLCs I may take those into account if it doesn't conflict with the story in the fic. Also, I have a timeline for this fic and when things took place based off of rough estimates, but nothing is canon. If I had to say when the beginning of the first chapter took place it would be after the Telltale game but before the events of Borderlands 3.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! Hope you enjoy this thing I wrote. If you did like it then consider leaving a comment and subscribing for email notifications because I never consistently upload on a schedule.

Today is the day. Today is the day that everyone has been waiting for. Three long months of planning for some dumb plan that could get everyone Rhys knew killed, himself included. He was about to risk everything for this plan. He tried to pawn off his role in the plan to someone else multiple times, but almost everyone in the end thought that he was the best person for the job. He swallowed audibly as he looked over his shoulder at the equally nervous teenage girl with one mint green glowing arm behind him. Today is the day.

Today is the day that Rhys is going to travel back in time. 

Now at 34 years old, Rhys Strongfork believed that he is at the peak of his life, CEO of the Atlas corporation, more friends than he probably ever deserved to have, and more money than he knows what to do with. If he’s so happy then why is he going back in time? Well that’s a kind of long story.

It all started a year ago when planet Themis was utterly destroyed without warning. Themis was a bit out of the way from the planet where Rhys was stationed, and he hadn't touched it since he became the CEO of Atlas. So at first, he didn’t think anything of it. Sure, planets rarely ever just crack and fall apart for no reason, but it has surely happened to some very unlucky ones during some point in time, Right? Then Rhys learned from his sort-of friends in the Crimson Raiders what had really happened to Themis.

The planet was rumored to have had a few vaults on it. Ever since the Crimson Raiders defeated the Warrior, Handsome Jack, and found the map to various and mysterious vaults across the galaxy, new vault hunters have been popping up and looking for the treasure that’s rumored to be inside them. A group of bandits on Themis were a part of that demographic and located two of the vaults each on opposite sides of the planet. They apparently wanted the vaults opened so quickly that they tried to open the damned things without vault keys... or any other method that usually opens vaults. They used a mixture of bombs and looted loader bots from old Hyperion work sites to try and blow open both of the vaults. At. The. Same. Time. As expected, that didn’t work out great and the vaults activated some sort of built-in anti-theft device (at least that’s what Tannis called it anyway) and set off some sort of planet-wide earthquakes. Themis cracked all the way through to the core and broke apart into two halves. One half was sent hurtling through space and the other is just sitting in the same spot and is also constantly on fire. Actually, the other half was probably also on fire, but no one has seen it in months, so maybe the fires that could have been on the hemisphere went out.

At first all of that information didn’t mean a lot to Rhys. The only thing he was concerned about was the large amount of his workforce that had family and loved ones on Themis. A lot of people needed time off to grieve and Rhys let them have that time; he was an awesome CEO and like that. Production stalled for a month and then kicked back up. That glorious production lasted all of two whole days before one of Atlas’ controlled planets had a massive planet-wide earthquake. Buildings collapsed, and a lot of things Rhys owned fell into sink holes. Though luckily, the planet held together when the shaking stopped. Some idiot bandits tried to open a vault without a key again. Now Rhys was beginning to worry, and he wasn’t alone. The Crimson Raiders started to investigate further and realized that the bandits were using the anti-theft device just for the sake of unnecessary chaos. Soon after that a different planet suffered the same fate as Themis had and broke apart from more idiots trying to open more vaults.

News had spread that vaults cause massive amounts of destruction when you try to open them without a key; and now left and right bandits and military groups were trying to gain control of entire planets by doing just that. Then different gun corporations tried to take back control of those planets by also doing that, including the freak from Maliwan. Earthquakes were becoming a common thing on planets with vaults, which were most of them, and people were dying everywhere. Why everyone would rather die in a horrible apocalypse than just minding their own business; Rhys doesn’t know. He met with the Crimson Raiders, a majority of the people he considers his friends are surprisingly elites in the Raiders, and calmly discussed how they should deal with the situation. Well… it was more like he took the first available ship to their headquarters and begged Lilith to fix it. Lilith couldn’t fix it, but the both of them agreed to station people outside of known vaults constantly to prevent more planetary destruction. Even vault hunters associated with the Raiders helped keep watch as long as they could open one of the vaults when a charged vault key was found.

At first their course of action worked, the earthquakes stopped, and Rhys thought he could finally relax again. Then some of the more intelligent military groups looted The Bunker, Hyperion's most well-protected and once heavily guarded work site, hacked the old busted Hyperion network, and found blueprints for the BNK3R. The only thing worse than fighting one of Hyperion’s toughest robots specially designed for Handsome Jack is fighting twenty of them all at once. Safe to say the bandits made it to the vaults and caused some more earthquakes and more cracked flaming planets.

It was panic time again. Rhys ordered all of Atlas’ workers onto one planet while Lilith yelled angrily at him through an ECHO Comm. Sorry Lilith, but he would rather his men not die from their choice of either Hyperion super death robots or the planet breaking apart. Rhys forced Vaughn to stay with him while the apocalypse was happening and of course that meant the bandit clan had to come along too. While Lilith was trying to ward off bandits, military psychos, and gun corporations, Rhys and Vaughn were playing retro video games in his super sweet office because he didn’t know what else to do.

Eventually Lilith too ordered her men to go back to their headquarters on Pandora. Rhys (with Vaughn) and Lilith met again with most of the Crimson Raider’s elites with them as well, even that big muscly dude from the Torgue corporation, Torgue, showed up to the emergency meeting. The meetings and discussions lasted weeks but no one could come up with anything worth trying except “How about we also build super death robots?” from Gaige. When all else failed they did try to get the BNK3R blueprints, but whoever stole them wiped them from the system, so that was a bust. That didn’t stop Gaige from trying to recreate it anyways. She got as far as creating a floating pile of Hyperion garbage that made a screeching noise when you touched it.

During those discussions Rhys had actually started to get closer to the people he only really talked to through ECHO Comm once in a blue moon. He was also finally able to catch up with Sasha and Fiona as well. Fiona insulted him as soon as she saw him, but it was all in good fun... he thinks. Fiona worked alongside many of the vault hunters at the meetings and now she goes on stupidly dangerous missions herself while Sasha keeps her updated from home. Sasha sells whatever Fiona finds, and neither of them want, to Marcus in sanctuary.

Lilith and Rhys were always more like work acquaintances than actual friends. Lilith was always busy with the Raiders and Rhys was always busy with Atlas, so they never made time to get to know each other. When the two did talk it was only to make deals with one another. Now is still much of the same because both of them still have to run things, but they see each other way more now that they do these daily meetings with everyone. Tina, who is not so tiny anymore, has made it her personal goal to make everyone get along like a couple of preteen girls at a birthday sleepover. Usually that involved what Tina called ‘mandatory break days’ once a week to order pizza from Moxxi’s place and play board games. Surprisingly, it wasn’t a terrible time but mostly because everyone who would make it a terrible time, a great example being Tannis, didn’t show up.

About six weeks into their desperate discussions someone new showed up on the Crimson Raider’s doorstep. During a particular large argument about the effect of setting off enormous bombs filled with varkids, Fiona came up the elevator where the meeting was held with a short young-looking girl beside her. The girl seemed to be trying to look tough with her hands on her hips but was failing miserably at it. She looked to be to Fiona’s shoulders in height.

Fiona yelled, “We have a special guest, everyone!” and everyone, minus Tina, stopped arguing to look her way.

“I’m just saying though that if those varkids live through the explosion they could turn into badass varkids and that would be pretty sweet,” Tina continued with her arms crossed over her chest as if nothing happened.

Fiona was about to speak again when Hammerlock turned back to Tina and said, “If we introduce those vermin to other planets, that may cause terrible consequences to the ecosystems across the galaxy!” Tina and Hammerlock looked each other in the eyes for a moment before laughing.

Lilith snapped at them, “Hey, can you two shut up and see that this might be one of those ‘this could fix all of our problems’ kind of moment?” She seemed to instantly recognized the girl's potential.

“Don’t those only happen in movies to get the plot resolved?” Brick asked next to Lilith.

Fiona smirked proudly and lead the girl into the room. There were different sounds coming from each person in the room as they realized why this girl was here. In the brighter lighting in the meeting room they could now clearly see the girl’s siren markings on her arm. The marks twisted up the side of her arms and crisscrossed a few times until they reached the sleeve of her shirt to where you couldn't see it anymore. It vaguely reminded Rhys of his own tattoo like all siren markings do. “No actually this is probably one of those moments,” Fiona said.

That’s when everyone was introduced to Kalilah. She is a 15-year-old siren originally from Themis, and that made sense because she dressed way nicer than anyone born on Pandora. She tried way too hard during her introduction to not sound too affected from the disaster when it was obvious that she was. All of her family died and she watched it happen again and again thanks to her siren powers. When Themis fell apart she was on Eden-7 trying to go to a nice school since her parents had some money to send her there. While at school she hid her powers and markings from the public. She used the remaining money that they sent her before they died to get a ship to Pandora and locate the Crimson Raiders. She had a not-so well thought out plan to fix everything and claimed she needed the Raiders’ help, and when she explained that plan Rhys could see everyone go through a range of emotions from terrified to excited. Rhys was definitely more on the terrified side.

Kalilah’s siren powers let her or others travel through time. She had actually already tried to stop the vault attacks herself a few times by using these powers, but claims she only made them worse and wouldn’t go into much detail about it other than, “I have never seen that much blood in my entire life and I never want to again”. She explained that her new plan would be to send someone (not herself, can’t be that easy huh?) back far enough to stop Handsome Jack from opening the vault of the warrior. Some people were confused as to why until Lilith brought up that if the vault of the warrior were never opened then the map with all of the vaults would never have been revealed. With no map the bandits would have never known that Themis had any vaults at all rather than two and no one would have found out about the whole no vault key destruction method.

Axton was immediately on board since his ex-wife died on Themis during the 'crackening' as Tina likes to call it. Others were very skeptical. If Jack never opened the vault, then he may still be alive and if he were still alive what horrible things would he be doing now? Many questioned if the girl was telling the truth about her powers. She proved it by sending Tannis back one day for only two seconds before also going back to bring her back to the present. The girl’s markings glowed a bright mint green and the room felt like it was underwater from all of the pressure her powers created. Tannis lived through the trip and told everyone that Kalilah was telling the truth as well as “All of you were still horrendously too oily yesterday from what I could see.” Then everyone had many questions some included:

“How does that even work without the universe exploding? You know, paradox shit.” 

“When I go back in time I inhabit the body of my younger self. When I go forward in time it’s the same thing with my older self. When I’m done with the past or future I can come back to the present. I don’t like going far in the past because of the major consequences I can cause. The whole butterfly effect thing. If I only go a little bit in the past to fix a mistake I usually just stay there and wait for the present to come naturally so I can see and hopefully fix any more unwanted consequences. If I send someone else back or forward they will inhabit the body of their younger or older self too but they… have to stay there until I can go there too and bring them back to the present.”

“So, you’re just gonna send one of us into the past and never come get us?” 

“I don’t want to but that might be the only option. Shouldn’t be too bad though, everyone usually wants to go back and fix their mistakes… probably... sometimes. I hope one of you do.”

“Why can’t we just go back a little bit and stop the bandits from killing off all of Themis?”

“Well I’ve never sent more than one person at a time back. I don’t think I would have enough power to send all of you back and one of you can’t do it alone, trust me.”

“Why can’t you just use eridium to boost your powers?”

“I’ve tried to and eridium doesn’t work on me, I'm not sure why.”

“Can't we go back and just get rid of the BNK3R information?”

“But… then Themis would still be gone. I mean we can still do that when the time comes, haha, get it? Time? Anyway we could do that, but if the vault never opens then we wouldn't have to.”

“Can we go to the future and see if we’ve found another, much safer way?”

“I’m afraid that if I or someone else goes forward and is already dead then we won’t be able to come back since there’s no body to inhabit. I don't know that for sure, but I don't want to experiment. No one knows when they die so I don’t go forward anymore.”

“Let’s just send back Claptrap, he’s annoying.”

“Sadly, it won’t work on robots since they don’t have a brain or a soul or… something like that I think.”

“Gotcha, so one of us will go back in time and kill Handsome Jack when he’s a little baby! I’m into it.”

“I wish it were that easy, but I can only go back and send people back as far was when I got my powers which was when I was six.”

“When were you six?”

“About nine years ago.”

Athena leaned back in her chair, “We can’t do a lot with nine years, Jack had already opened the vault on Elpis by then.”

“So, Jack would already have been in Helios. Shit, is there any way we can go back in time and be on Helios?” Lilith asked incredibly frustrated with all of the new information.

Kalilah’s face already told everyone that they wouldn’t like the answer to that, “Only if you were on Helios during the time you’re sent back to.”

Lilith’s eyes darted across the room to five different people. She looked at Timothy, who looked less like Jack with every new year; he looked away when she met his eyes. She looked at Aurelia who didn’t look worried in the slightest. Also, she looked at Athena who narrowed her eyes back at Lilith. She looked at Vaughn who immediately went pale. Finally her eyes landed on Rhys who really didn’t like what Lilith was implying by looking at him. He was not going back in time; he has way too many things now that he can’t give up, and the thought of seeing Jack again made him more than a little terrified.

“Hang on why aren’t you looking at Moxxi? She dated him!” Rhys said pointing at the woman across the table in an attempt to get Lilith to stop looking at him.

“We already broke up by then, sorry sugar,” Moxxi said with a smirk in his direction as a way of saying ‘nice try, but you're not getting out of this one... sugar’.

“Remember that I told you I left his employment right after he opened the vault on Elpis, Lilith,” Athena said still looking peeved. Her and Lilith have never gotten along in any setting.

“I did as well,” Aurelia added while the two other women glared at each other.

Tim cleared his throat, “Just so you know Lilith, I’ve always hated him.”

“We all hate him, Tim you don’t get a pass for that!” Rhys shouted louder than necessary. He was not getting stuck with this. 

Fiona snorted under her breath, “Oh yeah Rhys you definitely hated him with all those posters Vaughn was telling me you used to have. Didn't you even wait in line all night to get one?”

Rhys gasped and turned towards his ‘best’ friend, “Really? First you tell Jack himself and now Fiona? Whose side are you on, bro?”

Vaughn held up his surprisingly toned arms in defense, “It was supposed to be a time where we all could laugh about how dumb we used to be. Didn’t know you were still that embarrassed.”

“If it was supposed to be a conversation about how dumb we used to be then why did you just focus on me and-“

“Alright shut up, Rhys we get it, you used to worship Jack,” Sasha said now laughing with her sister.

Rhys could feel his face getting hotter, “I did not worship him! He sucks!”

“All the shitty things he did and all you can say is that he ‘sucks’? Wow, Atlas.” Mordecai said while shaking his head. There was a hint of a smile on the corner of his mouth.

Rhys opened his mouth to defend himself, but Lilith started talking before he could speak, “Alright let’s focus on what really matters right now, people are probably dying everywhere as we speak. If we do this right, we could do amazing things… Roland would still be alive for one," Those that have been in Sanctuary the longest smiled or nodded their head at that, "Let’s focus on who goes later. Let’s just plan everything else first and then we can decide who would be best to violently murder Jack, and I mean violently.”

As it turns out in the end the best strategy they could come up with is to just violently murder Jack as soon as the opportunity arises. And it only took one quick discussion to decide that Angel would be way more useful to the Raiders alive than she is dead, so the next goal was to save and recruit Handsome Jack’s daughter. It felt a little heartless to Rhys to talk about someone like they were just another tool. Lilith must have picked up on that because she started to go on about how horribly Jack treated his daughter and how nice of a girl she was when she wasn't manipulating everyone.

The plan was to somehow convince Jack that Angel needed to be let free then kill him up in Helios and take his place as president like he did with his old boss. Then just try their best from there to run Hyperion for a few years. If convincing Jack to let his daughter go didn’t work (which let's be honest it won't so why even try?) then they need find a way to release Angel later and keep her alive without Jack’s help. The problem with the plan is that many people have tried and failed to assassinate Jack while he was up in Helios, so someone would need to get his guard down first and find a way around security. They would most likely have to find a way to be invited into Jack’s office. It sounded like a suicide mission. No one is invited to Jack's office unless they are very important or are about to be murdered.

Immediately almost everyone was knocked off from the list of potential candidates but three, Rhys, Vaughn, and Tim. They have all had access to Helios during the agreed upon time to go back, eight whole years ago. Vaughn, much to his relief, was quickly taken off the list as well when the discussion came to who would know how to talk to Jack, kill Jack, and run Hyperion. Tim and Rhys were practically fighting for their lives and everyone knew it. Rhys didn’t want to give up Atlas, his sense of belonging, and all of his new friends. Timothy didn’t want to give up his freedom, his newly found safety, and individuality. Most people seemed to lean towards Rhys on the ‘who should go' scale. Timothy knew how to fight, knew how Jack fought, and could trick people into thinking he was Jack. Rhys however, had Jack in his brain, had many private conversations with Jack, was kind of (“Um, used to be”) obsessed with Jack and knew a lot about him, actually worked in Helios at the time, knew how to run a company, knew how to hack into things and could probably figure out how to let Angel out if need be. Rhys argued that last part a lot. He didn't even know where Angel was when she was alive until they started doing these meetings.

Rhys knew that when they started mentioning the Angel part that he was a dead man. Tim knew it too as he relaxed his own personal defenses. Five minutes later it was decided that Rhys will be the designated time traveler. Rhys felt it was more like being sent to be executed and refused to do it. Most of the attendees went home, a few of them stayed behind and took three hours to convince Rhys to actually go. They said he could run Hyperion AND Atlas and that Rhys already outlived Jack once so it shouldn't be that hard. Still, Rhys couldn’t stand the thought of seeing Handsome Jack again. Every time he thinks about him he only sees Jack’s manic smile while introducing that horrifying exoskeleton that was supposed to be shoved into his body. He trusted Jack and Jack betrayed him. He should have known better, but he was blinded by admiration. The saying was true, you should never meet your heroes. Vaughn was the only one by the end of the whole ordeal that still didn’t think Rhys should go. He is Rhys’ best friend for a reason.

During the next three months Rhys was busy with many different people. They were all helping him prepare for his trip that he most likely will not be returning from. He studied a book full of notes on Hyperion and Handsome Jack that Tannis had, a lot of it was just Tannis talking about how she didn’t like how Jack smelled. It wasn’t at all very helpful because anything other than the smell parts, were already things he knew, but it was fun to laugh at. They all perfected the plan and went over it hundreds of times. The plan was just to kill Jack, Rhys didn't know why everyone felt the need to remind him that all the time. He was way more anxious about this than when Helios was crashing down. Rhys took the time to appoint a temporary CEO for Atlas while he was gone, maybe forever. Kalilah said it didn’t matter since the past will affect the present and this present won’t exist anymore. Rhys almost had an anxiety attack thinking about everyone he knows ceasing to exist and Kalilah had to calm him down and just kept repeating “I know don’t think about it. They’ll be okay”. After that incident Rhys took more time to himself and even started a new campaign for Bunkers and Badasses with Tina, Vaughn, Lilith, Brick, and Mordecai with the occasional Mr. Torgue joining in randomly.

The more time Rhys spent with everyone the more he didn’t want to go. He knew how important this mission was to everyone. Lilith and the Raiders would get Roland back, Mordecai would get his beloved bird back, Angel would be alive and hopefully well, Axton’s ex-wife who he’s still weirdly attached to would still be alive, Themis and Kalilah’s family would be alive, and Rhys realized he would have a chance to save Yvette, something he very much regrets not doing. He still can’t shake the feeling that he’ll be murdered before accomplishing any of that.

And now today is the day where he has to fix everything. It was funny too, because Pandora experienced a huge Earthquake to send him off. Everyone watched it happen and didn’t say anything. It’s not going to matter anymore since everything will be okay soon. For them it would be okay, Rhys was still very unsure if he would be okay. Sanctuary was fine because it was in the air, but it was odd watching the world below shake. It just made everyone more eager to see Rhys go when the shaking stopped.

Right now, he stands on the edge of Sanctuary, looking over the edge to the planet below. If he wanted to jump he could, but he wouldn’t make it to the ground alive. He almost fell off when he felt a pair of arms wrapped around him from behind. Looking over his shoulder he could see messy blonde hair and a sad smile, “When you get back to now we’re going to finish our campaign. How convenient of you to leave right before the fight with the ultra-mega dragon of amazingness.”

Rhys returned the smile to Tina despite not feeling happy at all, “Of course, got to look forward to something when I come back.”

She let go of him and turned around to walk away to the town square without saying another word. It was odd how close he and Tina have gotten, but it was nice to know she cared enough to send him off. Most of the others don’t want to see him go, because they know that when he does go this world will most likely cease to exist and they will disappear. The only other people here are Kalilah, Vaughn, Lilith, and Sasha. Lilith and Sasha already said their goodbyes in the forms of a handshake and a hug respectfully. Vaughn was standing next to him on the edge. Rhys can see the worry in his face and body language. Vaughn wouldn’t leave his side all day and he said that he refused to leave until Rhys couldn’t be seen anymore.

While Rhys was lost in his thoughts, Vaughn suddenly nudged him in the side. Rhys gave him a questioning look, but he just was staring down below with horror on his face. Rhys looked to where he was looking and saw a humongous black sinkhole begin to form on Pandora’s surface. He felt like his eyes were about to bulge out of his head. He thinks he heard Sasha yell something. Pandora is falling apart, and Sanctuary will go down with it.

He definitely heard Lilith yell, “We need to do this right now! Pandora is crumbling under us; if we don’t move quickly none of us will be alive to go back!”

He couldn’t stop looking down at the enormous hole in the ground getting bigger and bigger with each second. Trees and roads began to fall in. How are there even anymore unopened vaults left on this terrible planet? The sound finally reached his ears, it was like a thunderstorm but much louder and much more ominous.

Rhys was abruptly turned around by Kalilah despite her small arms. She began shouting at the top of her lungs so he could hear, “Rhys you need to go now, okay? Hold onto my arm!”

He did so without thinking. He couldn’t help but say, “But… you’re all going to die,” but couldn’t hear his own voice over the sound of Pandora crumbling below. Why is he the only person that gets to live in the past while everyone else dies here? They should have chosen someone else. He doesn't deserve this. He knows he doesn't.

If Kalilah read his lips, then she ignored him. She gripped his arm as well, and her arm began to glow a mint green color. Her eyes glowed the same color and she looked directly into his slightly mismatched colored eyes. He watched tears fall down her face and his body suddenly felt very warm. And then he felt and saw nothing.

 

* * *

**[Approximately eight years earlier]**

 

Rhys’ eyes opened as his body suddenly felt like it was falling and tried to catch itself. He gasped, his heart skipped a beat and he quickly looked to his side. He was still on his bed. Groaning, he lifted his flesh arm to his face and rubbed his eyes. Peaking between his fingers he could see his clock showing 7:24 AM in bright red. So much for getting that extra hour of sleep he was looking forward to. There's no point in staying in bed now, he's wide awake for some reason. Why was he trembling?

Maybe he was catching something.

After literally rolling out of bed he stood up and turned the light on with the setting on his metallic arm. He loved his enhancements. A feeling made him stop in his tracks on the way to his dresser, but he wasn’t sure what was causing it. For some reason looking at the posters of Handsome Jack on his wall made him feel uncomfortable… and maybe a tad embarrassed? He tried to ignore it and resumed his normal every morning routine. Maybe Vaughn’s comments about the posters were starting to get to him. It wasn't that embarrassing was it? At least he isn't as dedicated to their boss as much as some of the weirdos he worked with are.

When Rhys left his bedroom, he found that Vaughn was already awake and reading something from his ECHO tablet on the couch in their living room. It was no surprise that Vaughn was already awake; he always woke up early. “Morning dude, what are you reading?” Rhys asked while passing Vaughn to go to the kitchen.

“Memos for today. Looks like Jack has been having a rough morning,” Vaughn said casually. His tone told Rhys that none of their departments were in danger of Handsome Jack’s wrath at the moment.

As Rhys was getting the milk for his cereal he asked, “Uh oh, who’s the unlucky bastard and/or bastards this morning?” Then he poured the milk into the bowl before returning the carton to the fridge.

“That have better not been the sound of milk being poured into an empty bowl. You know that isn’t how someone is supposed to eat cereal!” Vaughn said without looking into the kitchen behind him.

Rhys breathed out a laugh and begun to pour in the cereal while replying, “With the cereal on top it gets soggy way slower and last I checked there wasn’t a law on how to make a bowl of cereal.”

He could see Vaughn put the tablet on their coffee table. “I don’t care what your reason for it is, it still isn’t right. It’s like murder, it might solve your problems sometimes, but it’s still morally wrong,” Vaughn complained and turned around on the couch to face him, “Also if you look at your work email you’ll see a very long paragraph from Jack about ‘shitty Vladof crooks’ and eventually divulging into something about an ‘annoying pussy’. Basically, the planets deal went bad and he took out his anger on his personal assistant again.”

The other man sat himself next to Vaughn on the couch with his cereal in hand. After taking a few bites much to Vaughn’s disgust Rhys asked, “He dead?”

Vaughn relaxed back onto the couch, “Yep.”

“Two months, that’s not too bad,” He said after another spoonful. The longest Handsome Jack has ever gone without killing his personal assistant was three months. Every new assistant nowadays is usually an old applicant from years ago that got really unlucky during the draw when no one new applies or it’s someone obsessed who truly believes that they can be Handsome Jack’s permanent personal assistant. All of his assistants so far have been just straight up murdered by Handsome Jack or indirectly from Handsome Jack. The shortest time an assistant had lasted were two hours. It’s a wonder why Handsome Jack even keeps hiring new assistants if he's just going to kill them.

“Yeah he did better than I thought he would. I’m definitely not winning the pool at the office though,” The man next to Rhys said and turned his attention to the television in front of them.

Rhys pulled up his emails with his ECHO eye and sure enough the very first one on the list is from the CEO himself:

“ _Good morning idiots that work for me,_

_Handsome Jack here, your boss in case you morons forgot. So, this lovely morning I get an email from the assholes over at Vladof and let me tell you those pieces of shit really have the nerve to tell me to my face that “oh no Mr. Handsome Jack that deal is way too much from us on our end blah blah blah”. You fucking dumb shitty Vladof crooks don’t have any idea what a good deal is when you see one. Maybe you’d actually like to improve your accuracy on your FAR WORSE gun line instead of being stupid. But NO “we can’t give you two whole planets that’s too much” FUCK YOU. You weren't even using those planets except to hoard your trash. Expect a gift from me soon. Spoiler alert: the gift is my loader bots killing your shitty soldiers. I’m taking those planets anyway I was just trying to be nice about it._

_Anyways I was telling dear old Tommy about it and he stutters out like a little toddler “W-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-would you like me t-t-t-t-t-to set up a m-m-m-m-meeting” No, I don’t, fuck you too. I don’t have anything against speech impediments btw, but he didn’t even have one, the loser was just pissing his pants over me existing like he has been since I hired him. Well maybe if he finished his sentence a little quicker I would have wanted to set up a meeting with the dumb-dumbs. Too bad I didn’t hear what he said because I shot him in the chest before he could finish. He was an annoying pussy that I couldn’t stand anymore. I get that I’m amazing and you all are in awe of me, but could you at least function while I’m around??? Point is, position is open. Send your applications relatively soon. I want a new assistant by tomorrow._

_Love, Handsome Jack, your boss_ ”

Rhys turned his ECHO eye back off. Handsome Jack sometimes sends every employee a rant when he’s angry. Sometimes it’s funny and sometimes it’s nerve wracking. Normally he reads these rants and feels some sort of excitement or anxiety, but for some reason he just feels annoyed? It’s like he just wants to send an email back and tell the CEO to shut the hell up and that no one cares. He was now very confused. What could have made him think anything close that? Handsome Jack was an amazing leader and he wanted to be as important as him some day. He admires him greatly and owns a lot of things with his face on it. It's his dream to own as something as big as Hyperion, but he's really just fine with being under Handsome Jack. So why is his gut making him feel kind of gross at the thought of Handsome Jack?

Rhys realized that he finished his cereal a while ago and was just holding it awkwardly, so he left the couch to return the bowl to the sink. Deciding to think about something else, he needs to turn in his report to Henderson later today. He frowns when he realizes that Vasquez will be due for turning in his report today as well. Rhys is really hoping he doesn’t run into him. He doesn’t need to deal with the wallet-head and his dumb hair implants on top of worrying about his report.

Wallet-head? Hair implants? That’s a new one. He isn’t sure where his brain came up with that one. What is wrong with his thought process today? Wait… Wallet-head… isn’t Vasquez dead?

As soon as that thought hit his head he felt dizzy. His heart began to race, and his breath quickened. He couldn’t see anything all of a sudden because memories began to flood his vision, memories that he knows haven’t happened yet. Jack dead. Henderson dead. Lost 10,000,000 dollars. Trapped on Pandora. Jack is there all of a sudden. Jack is dead again. Yvette dying. Vault opening. Atlas. Earthquakes. And everything in between. When the memories stopped flashing in his head he almost fainted and had to hold onto the counter for support. It felt like he just died in reverse and that doesn't even make sense.

Holy shit he’s actually in the past! The present is fucked everyone is probably dead! He stood up straight again quickly despite the vertigo and looked over to Vaughn. He isn’t going to let his best bro die on Pandora of all places. Oh god he needs to kill Jack. Oh god the dizziness is getting worse, probably an anxiety attack. He gags and realizes he might puke. After forcing the bile back down his throat, he does the first thing he can think of.

He sprints to his bedroom as fast as he can, not caring what Vaughn thinks at the moment, and tears down those god-awful posters.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhys gets a new job and Vaughn's blood pressure goes up. Rhys' blood pressure never goes down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Hope you enjoyed! If you did like it then consider leaving a comment and subscribing for email notifications because I never consistently upload on a schedule.

_Rip_

This is disgusting why does he have so many posters? Normal people have posters of their favorite bands or movies, but Rhys has posters of his tyrannical kind of dead boss. He completely gets what Vaughn meant now when he said that it was disturbing. No sane person who doesn’t work for Hyperion has posters of their boss. He crumbles the poster into a ball and throws it behind him. His bedroom is starting to look much nicer without all this trash on the wall. 

_Rip_

Oh god, why does he have one of Jack without his shirt on? He remembers these being used for motivational purposes but there is no explaining this one. He rips it in half. If only he could have gone back farther to prevent himself from ever getting these in the first place.

_Rip_

“Hey, Rhys? What are you doing, buddy?” Vaughn asks from the doorway of Rhys’ bedroom. He sounds a little distressed, but definitely not as distressed as Rhys is.

This one is Jack holding wads of cash while wearing sunglasses. He looks like a douchebag, why does Rhys have this? This time he doesn’t bother destroying it and just lets it fall to the floor. 

_Rip_

He’s just stalling because he knows eventually he needs to find a way to kill Jack and he will probably die trying. He has about a year before the vault hunters who took down Jack are almost killed by him on that train. Preferably, Jack needs to die before then. Oh, there’s the puke coming again. Hold it Rhys, no one wants to clean your puke off the floor right now. It doesn’t want to go away this time.

“Rhys?” Vaughn asked once more. 

Rhys gags and drops the poster he’s holding to cover his mouth. Yeah, this is happening. He pushes past Vaughn and runs to their shared bathroom. After dropping to his knees in front of the toilet he does what needs to be done and afterwards just rests his head against the cool porcelain bowl. Thank god Vaughn bought those ugly rugs to put in their bathroom or he might have bruised his knees. 

The rest of the posters can come down later. For now, he just wants to sit here forever. He reached up and flushed the toilet without looking. Groaning to himself, Rhys remembers that he’s got shit he needs to do today and can’t actually stay here forever. His conscience was right; he needs to apply for the personal assistant position to even get close to Jack. He hadn't even thought of that before he left the future. Why can’t he just enjoy the past for one day? But no… Jack wants a new assistant by tomorrow. If only he could remember how quickly the next one was supposed to die. That sounds morbid. Couldn’t Kalilah send him back like three days earlier? He would have had time to go to that amazing food place in the hub that he hasn’t seen in years. Maybe he’ll go anyway once he signs his death warrant.

Rhys is brought out of his thoughts by Vaughn who sounds to be right above him, “I don’t know what’s happening. Is this like a mental breakdown kind of thing or is this a hospital kind of thing? Either way, I’m super worried right now.”

Rhys gave a thumbs up before immediately having to puke once more. He didn’t expect that one, it must have snuck up on him. 

“Uh nope. I don’t think you’re okay. Was the milk expired? Did you completely forget about your report until now?” The other man asked.

After flushing the toilet again, Rhys finally looked at Vaughn and said, “Nah dude just… I don’t know. I think I’m going to apply to be Handsome Jack’s assistant and maybe I’m a little worried about it.” 

That wasn’t the right thing to say. Vaughn’s eyes looked to be bulging out of his head and his mouth dropped open. Rhys quickly followed up with, “It could be an amazing opportunity, you know? Working directly with Handsome Jack himself? It would be pretty-“ He gags again but nothing comes up, “Pretty cool.”

Then Vaughn closed his mouth again before saying simply, “I’m going to call Yvette really quick. Go back to bed or something, Rhys. I’ll being you some water in a moment.” He then turned around to leave the bathroom.

Yeah this isn’t working. He was just going to hide the fact he was technically from the future to Vaughn, but maybe it would be better to just rip off the band-aid and tell him. Years ago, he took the Jack being inside his head thing kind of well, so maybe this would be another thing he takes well. 

“Hey bro?” Rhys said as he maneuvered his way back up to his feet.

Vaughn turned back around, “Yeah?”

“This is going to sound crazy, like super crazy. But you’re my best friend and I know you’ll believe me. And um… well I’m from the,” He coughed at the same time he said “future.”

Vaughn looked at him with noticeable confusion and said, “What was that? I couldn’t hear you.”

This sucks. Why couldn’t they send someone else to the past? He looks like a lunatic. Right now, he just wants to go to his sweet office at Atlas and take a nap. He tried again, “I’m from the y’know… future?”

Rhys and Vaughn just looked at each other for a long time until Vaughn turned back around and walked out of the bathroom. 

The taller man sighed before half-jogging out after Vaughn. He found him with an ECHO comm in his hand pacing back and forth in their living room. This really sucks; hopefully he doesn’t give his friend a heart attack, that would be an even shittier way to die than Pandora crumbling into itself.

“Vaughn, put down the comm, I’m not crazy! Don’t talk to Yvette, please!” He begged and tried to take the comm out of Vaughn’s hands.

Vaughn evaded Rhys’ grabbing hands but turned off the comm anyways. “No offense, but you just tore down all of your ‘precious’ posters, said that applying to be Handsome Jack’s assistant would be a good idea, and then claimed you were from the future,” Vaughn moved his hands rapidly as he talked, “That sounds really crazy. I don’t think you’re okay! What happened to make you freak out like this?”

“I’m not okay, you’re right! Vault hunters sent me back in time to do the impossible and basically said, ‘Just figure it out, you’ll be okay! We believe in you!’ So yeah, I’m not okay, but I have a job to do and I just wanted your support, bro! You’re the only one I have that I trust!” Rhys exclaimed in hopes of pulling on Vaughn’s heartstrings. He really doesn’t need Yvette here yet and have to explain how he may have been responsible for killing her in the future. 

“Uh, what job do you need to do? Not that I think you’re not having some sort of breakdown, but I’d still like to help you through whatever this is,” Vaughn asked as he finally stopped pacing.

This is the worst. Nothing good can come from this. “Just… Oh fuck it. I need to kill Handsome Jack before he opens the vault…”

Vaughn looked at the floor before falling backward and laying on the couch. He isn’t saying anything. That’s not a great reaction, but at least he isn’t screaming… yet.

“And sometime during that I need to save his enslaved siren daughter that he has locked up on Pandora in a bunker conveniently named ‘The Bunker’,” He knew this wasn’t going to help, but might as well get it off his chest now.

His friend only covered his eyes with his arm; his glasses fell onto the couch next to him. Rhys just stood there awkwardly until Vaughn mumbled out, “I wish you would have just stopped at the assistant thing.”

Rhys nodded, “Yep, me too. That would have been… that would have been smart.”

“Probably shouldn’t humor you while your brain is broken, but how far in the future are you from?” Vaughn asked while still not moving.

The taller man shifted from one foot to the other, “A little more than eight years.”

“Gotcha, and what are we doing eight years from now?”

He bit his lip for a moment before responding. Might as well just go all out. “Well, other than dying in a horrible apocalypse, I’m the CEO of Atlas and you are a cult leader to a bunch of ex-Hyperion weirdos. They are weirdos no matter what excuse you give them. People who work here are weird and they only get weirder after they stop working here.”

Vaughn shook his head, “That’s not even close to believable.”

He knows that it sounds that way, but it really is the truth. “We met a little siren girl and she sent me back in time to now, because Jack is indirectly responsible for the apocalypse that we’re supposed to die in,” That sounds a little better, right? It’s an explanation for it at least.

“Did Jack ever kill those bandits he’s crazy about?” Vaughn didn’t even comment on the apocalypse part.

“Nope, they did kill him though. After he opened the vault that is. Turns out the warrior wasn’t as tough as everyone thought it would be.”

Vaughn finally removed his arm from his face and looked at Rhys, “What’s the warrior?”

Rhys shrugged, “Not sure, just heard it was a giant vault monster Jack wanted to use to kill everyone on Pandora.”

“I can’t believe I’m still humoring you. You mentioned Jack having a daughter? One that we’ve never heard of, who is also a siren,” Vaughn said in Rhys’ direction.

Is he actually kind of getting through to Vaughn? It seems that way at least. Rhys nodded, “Her name’s Angel and she killed herself to try and stop Jack. He was using her, or I guess he still is at the moment, to charge the vault key.”

His friend rubbed his eyes and sighed. Holy shit he’s actually getting through to him. What? He isn’t even making sense yet. Vaughn really is a great friend. “Say that this is actually a real thing that is happening. Why do you need to kill Jack?” He said that part quietly like Jack could be listening in on their conversation.

Rhys smiled and said, “When Jack opened the vault the vault key broke and revealed a map of a bunch of vaults no one had discovered yet. Someone you wouldn’t know yet marked the vaults down and the map was leaked somehow. Some bandits on Themis tried to open two of those vaults at once and destroyed the planet. Long story short, everyone started using the vaults to blow up planets and nothing can stop them. So, they sent me back because I was one of the only people there that would have been on Helios at this time.”

Vaughn looked him in the eyes questioningly, “And you need to kill Jack, so no one can find the map?”

He nodded.

“There’s no way you can just go to him and be like ‘hey sir, I’m from the future and you’ll die if you open the vault so don’t do that’?” The man on the couch asked with one eyebrow raised. Holy shit, Vaughn actually might believe him. How did this even happen?

Rhys thought about it for a moment before shaking his head, “Well for one, Jack is a horrible person, still horrible after death too... don’t ask. And two, you hardly believe me so why would that paranoid asshole believe me? He wants those bandits to die so much that he’d enslave his daughter to do it.” Jack probably, no definitely deserves to die. He has killed so many good people on Pandora and probably elsewhere too. 

“Good point. I still think killing him is stupid though. You don’t even have a gun and he has a literal universe filled with factories that are filled with guns.” was all Vaughn had to say about that.

Rhys waited for a moment before asking, “Do you actually believe me?”

Vaughn shrugged while still on the couch, “Probably, there’s no other way you’d want to tear down all of your precious posters.”

He ignored that and asked, “Wait, really? You really ‘probably’ believe me? I don’t even know if I’d believe me if I didn’t live through it.”

“I don’t want to, but you’re my best friend and you aren’t really acting like you’ve lost your mind other than what you’re saying now. What you said only makes a little sense, but weirder things have happened in the galaxy… I mean alien vaults exist, right? I still think that becoming Jack’s personal assistant is suicide, even more so to try and kill him, but if you really need to… then I’ll do my best to help you in whatever way I can. I wish we had more time to think this through. It’s a horrible idea,” Vaughn explained all while looking at Rhys’ shoes instead of his face. 

Rhys felt instant relief despite everything that’s still weighing on his mind. Knowing that he can count on Vaughn like he always could makes things much easier-

“So how are we ever going to get Yvette to believe us?” Rhys was instantly on edge again.

“Wait wait wait, we can’t tell Yvette. Not yet at least,” He said, and Vaughn finally looked him in the eyes.

“What do you mean we can’t tell Yvette? All of us are a team. We’re definitely the strongest when we’re together, and we need to be as strong as we can if you’re really sure that this needs to be done.” Vaughn said and sat up. He certainly hasn’t looked comfortable in any way since Rhys began tearing down his posters, but now he looks even more worried if that was possible.

Rhys rubbed the back of his neck; a habit he does when he’s uncomfortable, and he is just as, if not, more uncomfortable than Vaughn is at the moment. Telling Vaughn about the time travel is one thing but confessing that he is directly responsible for Yvette’s death is another. He doesn’t even want to tell him about Yvette betraying them. It wasn’t easy for either of them to come to terms with Yvette almost getting them killed just for a promotion. He doesn’t want Vaughn to go through that again just yet. Rhys still wants Yvette to live and still be their friend, but he wants to focus more on that later after Jack is dealt with. 

Instead of telling the truth this time, Rhys says, “There is no way that she will ever believe us. It’ll be easier if we just let her do her own thing. That way she won’t be worried for our sanity or our safety.”

Vaughn gave Rhys a look like he knows there is a different reason for why Yvette needs to be in the dark, but he didn’t call him out on it. Instead he sighed and replied with, “Alright if you say so, but if anything terrible happens, which is pretty likely given the circumstances, we ask her for help.” Vaughn is completely serious right now and is actually committed to helping. The fact that he can take Rhys seriously at all right now is astonishing. He is either the best friend in the entire galaxy or he’s very gullible, but Rhys is glad either way.

“Yeah alright, but only when something terrible happens. Anything less than life threatening, and we leave her out of it,” Rhys replied with a nod.

The other man’s previously serious expression changed back to worry, “I hate that you put it like that.”

Rhys sighed and dropped himself next to Vaughn on the couch. He is supposed to head down to his desk in an hour but that’s not going to happen. There is no way he’s going to work when he has an application to fill out. No big deal, just applying to a new job. Maybe someone else will apply too and he won’t be picked. That would be terrible for the whole ‘saving the universe’ thing, but at least Rhys would be guaranteed to live another day.

Sighing again, he opened the blank application attached to Handsome Jack’s ranting email on the projector on his palm. It looked surprisingly simple for a job that is directly connected to the CEO himself. The application was only one page long, but when he initially applied for his position at Hyperion he filled out pages and pages of questions and things he needed to sign. 

“Could you stop sighing like you know you’re going to die?” Vaughn asked next to him. He was watching him nervously.

Rhys glanced at him for a moment through the hologram as he asked, “Would you like to apply with me?”

“I would like nothing less than that, thanks,” the other man replied bitterly. 

Looking at the first fillable portions on the application he could see the obvious things like name, age, and current position. He filled those in easily enough despite it hurting in his chest to do so, Rhys Strongfork, 34 no… 26, he wished he could put ‘CEO of Atlas’ but instead put ‘middle management in the coding department’.

He filled out the next few things pretty easily as well. Half a page later and when Rhys expected to see questions like ‘What are your strengths and weaknesses?’ he instead got ‘how often do you shower?’. Rhys reread the question a few times in disbelief before mentally saying “fuck it” and putting ‘once a day’. 

‘Do you have any children, adopted or biological?’ What the hell does that have to do with his capabilities as an overworked secretary? ‘No’. After this question Vaughn left for work, but not before giving Rhys one last look of worry and wishing him luck. He isn’t sure if getting the job is luckier than not getting it.

‘Any significant other?’ Pretty sure that question could count as harassment in other companies, but whatever. ‘No.’

‘Where do you believe someone goes when they die?’ Rhys didn’t know that this would be a philosophy essay instead of a job application. At least it isn’t boring to fill out. ‘Space probably’, He might be airlocked, but either way people who die on Helios in terrible ways are just released into space. 

‘What toppings to do enjoy on pizza?’ Another pointless question, but now Rhys has come to expect them. ‘Just pepperoni... And cheese if that’s considered a topping.’

‘Are you lonely?’ He isn’t even going to ask anymore. The questions are dumb. ‘Sometimes.’

‘What is your favorite color?’ The correct answer is probably yellow, but Rhys puts ‘blue’.

‘Why are you applying to this position?’ That one is kind of normal. He’s pretty sure these questions are just to fill space because Jack will pick literally anyone who applies. If Jack doesn’t like his new assistant after he’s picked them he just kills them. He probably won’t even look at this half of the page, so Rhys just wrote ‘Why not?’. And with that the least professional application he has ever filled out is complete. 

Rhys is pretty sure he just needs to reply to Jack’s original email with his application attached to officially apply for the job. He opens the email on his ECHO eye and does just that. 

He writes in the body of the email, “ _Good morning sir,_

_My name is Rhys Strongfork and here is my application to become your personal assistant._

_Thank you for this opportunity._ ”

He needs to send this, but Rhys can’t help hesitating. As soon as he sends this email the job is on and he can’t go back. The present or future will forever be changed if it hasn’t been already. This can only end in death; Jack or Rhys’ death that is.

Knowing that if he spends anymore time thinking about this that he might just delete the entire thing, he hits send. Immediately afterwards he turns his eye off again. Thinking for a moment he turns on his eye’s notifications. His heart is beating very quickly. He did what he needed to do and now he just needs to wait. 

He is still secretly hoping that Jack doesn’t pick him. Maybe he won’t, who knows? Then he would just need to find a different way to kill Jack. He needs to get this off of his mind. There’s always the rest of those posters that need to be taken care of. Work would help too, but he just doesn’t want to go. Working a mediocre job that he used to do years ago isn’t very appealing right now. Compared to owning Atlas, everything else is just that, mediocre and unappealing. 

After he took the time to shake off his nerves, Rhys walked back to his bedroom and resumed tearing off his terrible posters of the man he may soon be assisting. When the last poster came down he threw them all into the big trashcan in the kitchen. Then he did the dishes. Then he put his laundry in the washer. Then he ignored an angry email from Henderson, he remembers the thing about the kitten fighting ring and he isn’t a huge fan of Henderson anymore.

Two hours after Rhys sent the email and he quickly ran out of chores he felt like doing. So, he laid on the couch to take a nap. As soon as he closed his eyes a notification lit up his vision once again. When he read it, his eyes opened again way faster than when he closed them. 

He received an email from Handsome Jack. And just like that his heart rate skyrocketed again. He opened the email. Maybe it was just another rant- and nope the subject line clearly says, “ _Hello Rhys_ ”. A shiver went through his whole body when he read that. For a split second his brain worried about AI Jack also traveling back in time, but that definitely didn’t happen.

The email read simply, “ _Cool. You’re hired. Congratulations and all that junk. Come to my office when you see this._ ”

The appropriate reaction would be to calmly get up from his spot on the couch and promptly go to his boss’ office. That was not what he did. He did many different things. The first thing he did was lay where he was motionless for a while. The next thing he did was begin to laugh, just a chuckle at first and then it evolved into him sounding like a screaming psychopath. Then he really was a screaming psychopath because he stopped laughing and was just screaming and pacing around the living room. He heard his neighbor pound on the wall and then he stopped screaming.

Rhys swallowed the lump in his throat, wiped away his tears, and went to his bedroom that now had very bare walls. With his hair now fixed and his tie straightened (And not tucked into his pants, why did he ever do that?) he was ready to go to Handsome Jack’s office. He didn’t even really look like he just got done having a breakdown. He was ready… physically at least. Time to stop pitying himself and actually get shit done.

Leaving the apartment was difficult; Rhys stood there staring at the front door for a few minutes. No, he just said he’d get shit done, let’s go. Once he was out of the front door he took in the hallways that connected somehow to every part of Helios. The walls and floor and ceiling were white, but there was always screens here and there to project announcements and similar things like that. The residential halls are the most boring halls in Helios; probably because no one just hangs out outside of their apartment. Why would they? There isn’t any lawns or sun to enjoy, just the hallways and scrolling news on screens. God, he misses Atlas.

Rhys looked sadly at his and Vaughn’s fake tree that was next to their mailbox. Who would water their tree when Rhys was gone? Shaking his head, Rhys began walking down the right hallway towards the elevators. The stupid tree doesn’t need watered, it’s made of plastic. He was briefly saddened at the fact that his fake tree would not miss him at all. 

In the center of every level of residence corridors had a large hub full of elevators (and one emergency staircase). The main means of transportation on Helios is walking, elevators, and shuttles if you’re going to the other side of the H or one of the hubs. There are at least 25 elevators that just go down and 25 that just go up on either side. Rhys boarded one that went down. Him and Vaughn lived on the upper levels of the left side of Helios. He needed to get to the hub of heroism to get to the super guarded elevator that goes to Jack’s office. Ugh, that’s such a horrible name, ‘hub of heroism’, just call it ‘public district 1’ or something. It’s easier that way instead of naming each hub after some stupid bullshit.

After exiting the elevator, Rhys made his way through a corridor (not taking the shuttle so Rhys had more time to think) that is much wider than the one he was just in. These types of corridors have the most traffic and are usually never completely empty. At the end of this one is the hub of heroism. Checking his ECHO eye, Rhys can see that it is a little after 3 o’clock PM. The hub is filled with people like it usually is during the day, but at least most of Helios is working right now and the only people here are either on break or tourists. 

The elevator to Jack’s office is on the far back end of the hub. It’s surrounded by three human guards accompanied by a single loader bot and it’s behind a large metal door that looks to be thicker than three loaders bots stacked together. Everyone who walks past it always looks at it with mixed emotions for a few seconds as they go by. Some look excited at the thought of Handsome Jack walking out of the elevator at any moment. Others look just a tad less terrified than how Rhys currently feels and walk faster as they pass. The ones that need to use the elevator to meet with Handsome Jack are usually a mixture of both, except Rhys of course. He’s just extremely nervous and not at all excited.

Rhys watches the guards and the door from across the room. He already made it out of the apartment which was pretty difficult, so going over there shouldn’t be too hard. He turns on the messaging system on his ECHO eye and sends a message to Vaughn. He’s definitely not stalling, he just needs to let Vaughn know where he is. The message mentions that he got the job and he is heading to Jack’s office right now. If he dies, then Vaughn will have to bury him on his home planet… if there’s still a body to bury.

Finally, Rhys pushed himself forward and begun to walk to the elevator. Then Vaughn sent him three consecutive messages, 

“ _Oh no!_ ”

“ _He wants you there now??? Like NOW now?_ ”

“ _Message me back when you get out of there ASAP. Don’t do anything to make him want to kill you please._ ”

Well now he feels bad because Vaughn is going to worry about this all day while he is at work. His friend would probably be more upset if he didn’t send him a message though, so he doesn’t feel too bad. He won’t message him back yet because that would just be stalling this even further. 

His feet felt much heavier than usual as he took one step at a time to the guards. The guards see Rhys heading in their direction and began watching him carefully. Now it’s awkward because they’re looking at him and he looks like he’s about to cry.

“State your business,” the guard in the front asked with his hand outstretched to stop Rhys from going any further. 

Rhys swallowed and said, “Um… Handsome Jack is expecting me. I’m Rhys Strongfork.”

The guard nodded, reached both of his hands into Rhys’ personal space, and proceeded to pat him down. The guard searched his pockets as soon as he was done with the pat down. If he’s going to kill Jack, he definitely can’t bring something in through here. Even if he could get something through here he doesn’t have a gun or anything equally lethal. 

“That arm shoot bullets?” One of the guards off to the side asked.

The guard that just got done searching Rhys made a face and said in the other guard’s direction, “No dumbass, when has Hyperion ever made guns that look like arms?”

“You never know!” The other one replied.

The main guard finally tore his hands off of Rhys and motioned to the guard on the other side to open the door. 

The thick metal doors pull apart to reveal the elevator. The main guard moved aside to let Rhys pass. He does with a very quiet “thanks” to the guards. They seem a little dumb; at least the one does. Maybe it won’t be too hard to get something past them if they’re distracted enough. He’ll give it more thought later if he survives his visit to Jack’s office. 

He steps inside the elevator and it closes behind him. It automatically started to go up which made Rhys stumble. He didn’t expect it to start moving without pressing any buttons. Oh god now he can’t go back. He was hoping for at least one more thing to keep him from Jack, but that isn’t going to happen it seems. The elevator itself is nicer than any other elevator on Helios and it has one-sided glass. He can see the hub, but no one in the hub can see him. 

As the elevator ascended the hub disappeared and all Rhys could see was a dark concrete wall. Then the elevator suddenly stopped, and the doors opened. He stepped into the room and the elevator doors automatically closed again.

The sight that greeted him was less scary than he imagined. The elevator didn’t go straight into Jack’s office. Instead he is in what looked kind of like a high-class waiting room. Two humongous double doors with the letters ‘HJ’ in gold are straight ahead of him. Around the rooms is a few yellow chairs and couches that no one probably ever relaxes on. Who could relax so close to what’s behind those huge doors? Little end tables are next to the places to sit with some potted plants on them, probably fake like his outside of his apartment. There are windows that looked into space. There is a desk on the right side of the double doors with what looks to be standard secretary stuff on it, two computer monitors, cup full of pens, similar kinds of things like that. Behind the desk is a bunch of cabinets, both the filing kind and the normal kind. Below those cabinets is a row of countertops with a sink on one end and a coffee machine on the other. 

The room felt oddly lonely because it was huge and there is no one at the desk or around the room. Rhys waited right where he was standing for a few minutes, but no one showed up at the desk and Handsome Jack did not come through the doors. Was he just supposed to go in? Jack’s email said to go to his office. He scratched the back of his neck nervously. After another minute of nothing happening, Rhys groaned and just walked forward. He stopped in front of the door and knocked. No response. He knocked again. Once again, no response.

This is Jack’s office, right? No one else in Hyperion has a stupid huge office with their own elevator, right? Why isn’t the asshole answering the door? He’d love to just go back home right now and forget about it, but Jack would probably kill him for not showing up.

Whatever, Rhys is already here, and if he waits any longer he might have a heart attack from how fast his heart is beating. He puts his hands on one of the door’s handles and pulled. It didn’t open that way. He pushed hard, expecting the door to be heavy. It wasn’t heavy at all. It swung open quickly from the force and slammed into the wall making a loud bang. He jumped at the noise and swore, “Oh shit!”

The office was dimly lit by the glow of Elpis. It was even bigger than the waiting room. There were fountains of running water on either side of the lower level. Oh of course Jack needs two levels in his office. It was just as he remembered it from the time he was in here years ago… or well almost two years from now. On the center of the upper level is his desk and amazing chair. He can’t see it right now from where he is, but he knows that on the right of the upper level is a library with a few couches. On the left side of the upper level (which he also cannot see) is Jack’s trophies. Jack is nowhere in his line of sight.

Rhys took a few tentative steps into the room. Then on the edge of his vision he saw something move. When he turned his head to look at it he found himself looking down the barrel of a pistol. His mouth dropped open, but he couldn’t force a scream out of his throat. Glancing over the gun he could see the man that he was there to see. He had to blink a few times to register that it was actually him, Handsome Jack in the flesh, not hologram. He is looking at Handsome Jack in person, full of color and life. His mask looks so real. He is alive, and he looks annoyed. Any moment now and he probably won’t see him anymore.

Jack looks him in the eyes for a second, green and blue into brown and blue. Rhys couldn’t breathe while looking into them. Then Jack smirks just like how Rhys remembered and lowers the gun. Then he bursts out laughing. Rhys is very happy that he doesn’t need to pee right now, or his pants would be very wet.

“Oh my god it took you long enough, kiddo!” Jack said in between cackles, “I heard this loud ass noise while I was taking a piss and I thought someone set off a bomb in here! Look at your face! Did you think I was going to kill you? What am I saying? Of course you did.”

Yes, he did. Rhys can now see that over Jack’s shoulder is a door wide open showing the inside of a bathroom. That’s why he didn’t answer the door. He would be more embarrassed if he wasn’t just reminded how much he hates Jack. Ignoring that feeling, he lets out a nervous laugh.

Jack calmed down until he stopped laughing. He took a look around Rhys to the door that he slammed open. “Did you really think it was appropriate to just waltz into your boss’ office without being invited inside?”

Rhys moved to explain himself.

“Well you’re also the type to just send his application directly to the CEO of the company so yeah you probably would,” Jack interrupted and put his hands on his hips. He sounded kind of peeved, but he wasn’t doing anything about it.

After seeing that Jack was waiting for him to explain himself finally, Rhys said, “Sorry sir, I thought that’s where we were… where we were supposed to send them, and you told me to come here and I’m here so…” Wow it’s like Rhys wants to die. He hates himself for stuttering because the literal last assistant was killed for stuttering, but he can’t help but be scared. Also, that last part sounded rude, but he didn’t know what else to say. Fix it. He needs to fix it now. Jack still has a gun in his hand. “I’m sorry if I-“

Jack frowned deeper and cocked his head to the side just a nudge. He looks like a child trying to figure something out. “Save it, I don’t want to hear it. I get it, I’m great and everyone else sucks. Let’s just get on with the program,” Jack spoke as he began to walk past Rhys and took the steps to the upper level, “Come on, princess, I want to interview you a little.”

For some reason Rhys was feeling less scared and more annoyed. He isn’t sure why he thought that this Jack would be scarier than the Jack he knew, but they seem to be the exact same. This one can obviously kill him unlike the other, but personality-wise they’re both narcissistic jackasses. Why is he interviewing him anyway? Doesn’t he already have the job?

He followed after Jack up the stairs and was surprised when Jack didn’t go to his desk, but to the library to the right. Jack lead him to one of the two couches and motioned for him to sit down. He did but didn’t feel at all comfortable despite the couch itself being extremely comfortable. Jack did not sit on the couch with him and instead stood in front of the couch with his arms crossed.

Jack looked him up and down for a moment. Rhys squirmed in his seat. Okay maybe he was still a little scared. “So I asked you on your application why you wanted to be my assistant,“ Uh oh, “and you just wrote ‘Why not?’. What the hell does that even mean?”

Rhys swallowed, “Um well… I thought you wouldn’t read that part.” That sounded even more stupid out loud than it did in his head. Vaughn is going to be so pissed that he got killed before he even leaves the office. 

Jack sputtered in disbelief, “What?” He looked around the office like someone was about to jump out and announce that this was a prank. “How could you think that I would be too lazy to read one page of text? Not even one page since most of the things you put were one- or two-word answers. Hell, the most effort you put into answering was the question about pizza.”

“I didn’t know you cared about that stuff! Those questions were so random I thought you were just filling space or something,” Rhys mentally scolded himself. He’s talking to Jack like he’s AI Jack. He might know Jack, but Jack certainly doesn’t know him. Jack could kill him and not even blink.

For some reason, Jack didn’t kill him for kind of yelling at him. Instead he raised an eyebrow and said, “Are you actually stupid? They aren’t ‘random questions’ I asked them for a reason. The shower one was the most important though; my assistant needs to not smell like a skag’s ass. So, let me ask you again, and don’t answer like a moody teenager, why do you want to be my assistant?”

The urge to say ‘why not?’ is overwhelming right now. Luckily though, he has some self-perseverance. Unluckily, he didn’t think about this part. Why hasn’t he rehearsed a cover story? He is literally here to kill this man at some point and he didn’t think about making a cover story. He really is an idiot. He said the first thing that came to his mind which was, “Uh… My boss sucks, he punches kittens or something. It’s terrible. You’d be a better boss… unless you also punch kittens.”

Surprisingly, Jack laughs and says, “Oh shit yeah!” He looks to the floor in thought with his hand on his chin. “Who was that again with the kitten fighting ring? Pretty sure they’re a huge racist too.” He looks back at Rhys with a smile and says, “You’re right, I am a better boss. I’m a better boss than anyone on this station. Also, good news, I don’t hurt kittens, but I will admit it is hilarious watching a sad grown man take out his anger in the most pathetic way.”

Yeah it really is the same Jack. Did he just believe that lie? Seems that way. Rhys took his chance to ask a question, “I thought you told me I already had the job. So why are you interviewing me again?”

Jack didn’t immediately answer and instead raised the gun in his hand and pointed it back to Rhys’ face. He went from grinning to pissed off in seconds. Rhys felt his eyes widen in fear and his heart pumped faster. Will his heart ever get a break today? He let his guard down and made a mistake. Jack is dangerous, and he hates being made to look stupid in any way. “I wouldn’t have to interview you if you answered all of the questions on the application seriously. You have a bit of an attitude and that can be fun sometimes, but you don’t have to act like a dumbass to impress me.” He lowered the gun once more, “And to answer your question,” Jack smiled once more, “I just wanted to get to know you better since we’ll be working together for a little while. I looked at your profile, but I still don’t know much about you.”

Rhys didn’t like anything about what just happened, but the part he liked the least was when Jack said ‘a little while’. He knows Rhys won’t last long. “Sorry sir, it won’t happen again,” Rhys said after he could finally breath again.

His boss didn’t comment on his apology. He turned around and began to walk towards his desk. “Come on let me give you the tour, kiddo,” Jack said seemingly forgetting about Rhys’ back-talk.

Rhys didn’t need a tour since he owned this office for like fifteen minutes once, but he got up and followed anyway without complaint. Jack stopped at his desk and Rhys stopped a few feet away next to him and folded his hands together in front of himself. “This is my desk if it wasn’t obvious,” Jack rubbed his hand on the desk a few times and gave it a pat, “Most of my work is done here. I will be here most of the day. If you need to tell me something or ask a hopefully not stupid question, come in to see me. It gets lonely in here and I want to see another human face sometimes.” Jack gives him a wink at the end of that. Rhys blinks in response. Was that flirting or was he trying to be quirky? With Jack it could be anything.

Jack lifts himself onto the desk and leans back. “I have a formal list of your duties for you, but I’ll give you a little rundown now. I want to you be ready for tomorrow morning.” Whatever happened to the tour? “Every morning you need to be here a little before six AM. I get here at six and if I don’t immediately get a coffee I will murder the first five people I see, not an exaggeration by the way. The coffee machine is behind your desk outside, you probably saw your desk before you came in. I like my coffee black so don’t worry about creams or sugar or anything like that. If you want coffee yourself feel free to make yourself a cup, I won’t give a shit.” That’s why no one was there at the desk, the assistant was killed this morning.

“You don’t need to come in on Sundays unless I ask you to. Sundays are my day off, so you won’t have anything to do. Any other day like I said, you will come in a little before six, however long it takes you to make a cup of coffee. Then you can leave at four PM unless I ask you to stay later. You’ll get paid every week on Friday. Like I said, I looked at your account and I think you’ll like the money you’ll make working up here.” Jack is being surprisingly professional about this. Rhys didn’t know the CEO could go this long without a snide remark about something. Maybe Rhys didn’t know him as well as he thought, but the Jack that he knew was also trapped in his head.

Jack sat up and continued, “While I’m in here you will mostly be out there unless you need something, or I ask you to come in here. Seriously though, if you have a question come in and ask me. I’d rather answer a dumbass question than deal with Helios falling to Pandora or something because you tried to fix a problem yourself.” Rhys flinched at that. What a coincidence. “On your computer at your desk you will be doing things like scheduling meetings and either answering or forwarding dumbass emails to me. Around noon you will go down to the hub and pick up whatever I’ve ordered for lunch. If you want something for lunch let me know before eleven and I’ll order it for you. Both you and I will take an hour for lunch at noon.” Rhys nodded along to the man’s words. Jack is going to pay for his lunch? That’s not too bad at all. Why doesn’t this sound like a complete nightmare? It actually sounds like a decent job, but Jack did neglect to mention all of the death. How did the other assistants die so quickly? Jack was probably mad at something and killed them.

His boss hopped down from the desk and began walking down the stairs. Rhys again followed without saying a word. Jack pointed towards the bathroom and said, “There’s the bathroom. Only you and I are allowed to use it. Don’t need any of the freaks downstairs licking where my ass has been or anything like that.” Rhys made a face of disgust. He knew that given the chance a lot of those Handsome Jack fanatics would kill to do weird shit in his bathroom. Thank god he wasn’t ever that devoted to Jack.

They walked through the door that was still where Rhys had slammed it open. Jack stopped in the middle of the waiting room and put his hands on his hips. “This place used to be a lot shittier before I became president. Claptrap units everywhere, it was a nightmare,” Jack said while looking around. Then he pointed towards the desk by the door. “Take a seat over there, kiddo, I wanna see how you look at the desk.” Rhys wishes that he could tell Jack to quit calling him kiddo. It was a terrible nickname and it gave him flashbacks of being stuck on Pandora.

Rhys obeyed and walked around the desk and sat himself down on the chair. It was much more comfortable than the chair at his old job. From here, Rhys could see a few different buttons on the wall. On the monitor he could see a little sticky note with the username and password written on it. 

Jack smiled and nodded, “Yeah, that looks nice. Middle management, huh? You look like you were born to be a secretary.”

Rhys raised his eyebrow and made eye contact with Jack. “Okay,” he said more to himself than to Jack. Was that meant to be a compliment? He didn’t take it that way. At least he isn’t dying at the moment.

The man in front of him frowned for a moment before smiling again and clapped once before pointed behind him to the elevator and said, “I met you and you got the grand tour so get going and I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow.” For some reason Jack looked unsure of himself. Rhys knew that look and wondered why it was there. Can he tell that Rhys has an ulterior motive? Hopefully not.

Rhys finally broke eye contact and scurried around the desk and Jack to the elevator. It opened for him and he stepped inside. He looked up once more to see Jack looking at him curiously. Jack snapped his eyes back onto Rhys’ and winked before shooting a finger gun at him. He felt his breath hitch. What a bizarre situation this is. Before Rhys could respond, the elevator door closed, and he began to descend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone sorry if this chapter is a little slow. I had to get everyone where they needed to be before the (spoiler alert:) **Bonding** (TM) starts. Next chapter will be full of Rhys and Jack interactions. Vaughn will be there too, maybe even Yvette.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Hope you enjoy this thing I wrote. If you did like it then consider leaving a comment and subscribing for email notifications because I never consistently upload on a schedule as we have both experienced now. Sorry about that, but I never know when my creativity will go away.

The first thing that Rhys did after leaving the elevator to Handsome Jack’s office was go right back to his shared apartment. He could hardly form any thoughts. He didn’t notice everyone in the hub staring at him when he left the elevator because he tuned out everything around him while on his way ‘home’. As soon as he was in the apartment he took off his shoes and tie before falling face forward onto the couch and passing out almost instantly. 

He was awoken probably around 5 o’clock, since that is when Vaughn usually gets home from work, by Vaughn slamming the door open and yelling, “Are you okay, Rhys!? Why didn’t you send me a message like I asked you to?”

Rhys jumped awake at the loud noise and screamed in fear at the same time Vaughn was yelling. When both of them stopped making loud noises Rhys, who was still slightly jumpy from the noise, asked, “What?” For a brief moment Rhys forgot that he was in the past and expected to see Vaughn without his shirt on and with a full beard. 

Vaughn gestured vaguely to Rhys, “How are you napping right now? Why didn’t you answer my messages? Did you even go see him?” Vaughn started chewing on his fingernail anxiously, “Oh god, if you didn’t go he could be-“

“I went to see him! Don’t panic yet.” Rhys exclaimed, cutting Vaughn off. He stood up to be eye-level with his friend.

The shorter man could finally breathe again, but still didn’t look relaxed. He probably hasn’t looked relaxed at any point all day. “You didn’t message me after you went there. I was so worried about you. I thought you actually died,” Vaughn said looking like he could cry from either frustration or relief. 

Rhys himself wanted to cry. He felt incredibly guilty and he was still afraid for his life. He made sure to look his friend in the eyes (something he trained himself to do after taking the Atlas certificate) and said sincerely, “I’m sorry, man. After being up there and being… being face to face with Jack I just stopped functioning. I couldn’t do anything other than come here and… I just needed to be somewhere alone and be somewhat safe. He pointed a gun at my head twice.” He probably shouldn’t have added that last part. 

Vaughn’s eyes widened. He didn’t say anything before stepping forward and wrapping his arms around Rhys; embracing him in a hug. Rhys closed his eyes and returned the hug. He didn’t expect that, but it felt very good at the moment. Maybe if he was hugged more often he would be less stressed, and as a result live longer. Well maybe afterwards if he has survived the whole Jack ordeal.

After a moment Vaughn released Rhys and took a step out of his personal space. Then he sighed and said, “I’m sorry, bro, I should have just taken the day off and waited for you. I was so close to calling Yvette. And I would say going to Jack’s office counted as a life or death situation.”

“No, you were okay, I should have let you know that I was alive,” Rhys said while shaking his head. Vaughn just nodded in response.

They were quiet for a moment and just stared awkwardly at the ground. Then Vaughn lifted his head back up and asked, “What happened while you were up there?”

Rhys motioned for them to both sit on the couch. Once seated, Rhys told Vaughn exactly what had happened and what he was thinking throughout the whole experience. Vaughn nodded along here and gasped in horror there. After Rhys finished recounting what happened Vaughn rubbed his eyes under his glasses and asked, “How do you think he’ll announce to everyone that you’re his new assistant?” He seemed to choose to ignore that Rhys was an idiot and almost died; that’s probably a good thing.

He didn’t even think about Jack announcing his new job; however, he hasn’t had time to think about much of anything lately. Usually Jack let’s all of Hyperion know that he has a new assistant in his own way. Normal bosses would send out an email to everyone, but Jack liked to be different. Sometimes he’ll parade his new assistant around Helios and check up on every department while silently daring someone to do something to or mention the assistant. Rhys had seen one of his old managers get shot for doing that; he lived, but now walks with a noticeable limp. Other times Jack will record an announcement to play on all the news screens and have his assistant do something stupid or embarrassing in the background. On very rare occasions where Jack hasn’t already killed his last assistant he’ll make the new assistant kill them on one of the performance stages around Helios. Rhys is very glad the assistant before him is already dead.

At that last thought, the only thing Rhys could do in response to the question was shrug. He didn’t even want to think about all of the new pools that would be made to predict his death. Then while still thinking about how Jack will announce him to Hyperion, Rhys realized that he needed to tell Yvette about his new position. She won’t be happy, and Rhys still didn’t want to see her yet, but Yvette was still considered their friend at this point in the timeline. If he wants to save Yvette and keep her as a friend and ally, then he needs to tell her before Jack does. It will only make her more likely to betray them again if he doesn’t.

“Hey Vaughn, have you run into Yvette today?” Rhys asked.

Vaughn shook his head and said, “No. I’m glad that I didn’t because she would definitely see me having a panic attack and you know I’m a terrible liar.”

“I need to tell her before Jack announces it,” Rhys said and leaned back on the couch.

Vaughn leaned back as well, “Yeah that would probably be a good idea… just leave out the time traveling part. Oh, and the killing Jack part.” Vaughn looked like he was finally calming down now that he was kind of joking with him again. 

“I was already planning on not doing that, but thanks,” Rhys said while rolling his eyes. He heard Vaughn let out a small breath of a laugh next to him. Thank god he isn’t still as worried as he was earlier; he would have probably had a heart attack, or some other terrible thing happen relating to worrying too much. Thank you, Vaughn, for the hug and moral support.

Rhys pulled up his messages on his ECHO eye and selected Yvette’s name. He started to type out a message for her on his arm when Vaughn asked, “Are you telling her over text? That really isn’t cool, bro.”

He scoffs and says, “No, I’m not that dumb,” He erases what he already had typed, “I’m just inviting her over.” He begins typing again.

Vaughn leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, “Uh huh, okay. Well I can’t wait to see her reaction to your new job. Think she’ll congratulate you?” Rhys could hear the sarcasm in his friend’s voice. 

“Hey now, I’m already living in a constant nightmare; there is no need for the sarcasm,” Rhys said while finishing his message to Yvette and hitting send.

“Sorry,” Vaughn said and looked towards the front door, “What time did you invite her to come over?”

“As soon as she can. I just want to get it over with. Then I want to go to bed.”

Vaughn looked back at Rhys, “Did you eat anything today after I left?”

Rhys shook his head. The other man frowned deeper and asked, “Do you want me to make you something or order something?” 

Rhys shook his head again, “I’m not hungry. My stomach feels like it’s going to explode when I think about food.”

“Well you threw up this morning, so I think that you should eat something.”

Rhys was going to make a retort when their front door opened. Both of the men whipped their heads to the door to see Yvette kicking her shoes off. Seeing Yvette sparked mixed emotions in Rhys, but he did his best to ignore it. “That was quick,” He said more to himself than anyone else.

“I was actually already on my way here when I got your message. Could you be anymore vague by the way?” Yvette asked nonchalantly and sat herself between her two friends. She looked from one side to the other and noticed their equally uncomfortable expressions. “Uh oh. What happened now?” She tried to make it sound like a joke, but Rhys could tell that she was worried even if she didn’t want to show it. If she truly did care about Rhys and Vaughn at one point, then why did she betray them in a little more than a year from now?

Rhys and Vaughn gave each other a look. Then Vaughn cleared his throat and said, “Well, Rhys has some news that he would like to share with you.” Thanks Vaughn. Just getting right into it.

Yvette gave Rhys a questioning look. “Why is it that when something goes wrong it’s usually from one of your ideas?” She asked. Oh, that’s rich coming from her. 

He scowled at her for a moment without thinking. Then he went back to looking nervous while he thought of what to say. Finally deciding to just spit it out he said, “Nothing went wrong… yet. Just wanted to tell you that I got a promotion.” That wasn’t actually spitting it out. He could see Vaughn over Yvette’s shoulder give him a look that said, ‘Really? You’re doing this now?’.

She looked surprised for a moment and then gave Rhys an unsure smile. “Really? How’d you manage that?” Before he could answer her, she followed up with, “Does that mean we get to go to dinner to celebrate?” Of course, she was still looking for free food.

Vaughn looked to the floor nervously. Rhys coughed and said, “We’re not going to dinner,” Yvette’s smile fell slightly, “And I got the promotion because I applied for it.”

Yvette was about to say something when Vaughn spoke up, “God, Rhys, quit stalling and just tell her!” 

Yvette’s smile fell completely. Now she looked actually worried. “Fine! I’m Handsome Jack’s new personal assistant! There, happy?” Rhys semi-shouted quickly. The last part was directed over Yvette’s head to where Vaughn was sitting. 

Everyone was quiet for a moment. Yvette looked from Rhys to Vaughn and then back to Rhys. “Um… What?” She finally asked, “Are you joking?”

“Nope, completely serious. Rhys applied this morning and was accepted. You did see that Jack killed his last assistant this morning, right? He thought it would be a ‘great opportunity’,” Vaughn said. He sounded both annoyed and scared that the same time. Just because they can’t tell Yvette about the time travel thing doesn’t mean Vaughn can turn on Rhys like this. He glared at him over Yvette again and Vaughn returned it. Is this acting or is he actually upset right now? Probably at least a little bit upset. Yvette was once again at a loss for words. She looked at Vaughn in a way that Rhys couldn’t see, and Vaughn once again said, “I promise this isn’t a joke. He even went up to his office and could tell you all about it.”

Then Yvette stood up, glared at Rhys too, and said angrily, “You can’t actually be serious right now!” She once again didn’t wait for a response and continued, “I don’t know what went through your hair gel covered head to make you think that this was a good idea, but you’re out of your mind! How the hell could you do this to yourself? To us?” He thought the exact same thing about her years ago. She stepped over Vaughn’s legs and held onto the couch for support. “You know you could come to us for anything right?” He isn’t so sure about that. “We could help you through whatever you’re going through; you didn’t have to do this!” She must think he’s depressed or suicidal. She looks so hurt right now, like he’s already gone. He wishes he could tell her the truth, but he can’t bring himself to do it. 

Rhys closed his mouth that apparently fell open while Yvette was yelling. Then he said pleadingly, “Nothing is wrong! I promise. I just saw an opportunity and I took it. I met with him like Vaughn said and he wasn’t nearly as bad as he makes himself out to be.” Half-truths are better than lies, right?

Yvette scoffed, “Have you not noticed that he has murdered every single assistant that he has ever had? Who knows how long you’ll last when he’s mad at something and has no one else to take it out on except you.” She had a point and Rhys knew he was in danger, but he did what he had to do. He can’t imagine how Yvette will react if he manages to kill Jack. Will she be amazed, confused, angry… scared?

“Don’t worry, Yvette. I’ll be fine.” He said as smoothly as he could.

“You look like you’re about to piss yourself! Do you even believe what you’re saying?” Yvette asked with her hands on her hips. He wasn’t as smooth as he thought he was. How is he still this bad at hiding his emotions when he’s been the CEO of Atlas for at least six years? She looked at Vaughn, “Did he tell you that he was going to do this?”

Vaughn looked from her to Rhys with panic in his eyes. Rhys couldn’t let Vaughn tell the truth and have Yvette feeling like they don’t trust her, so Rhys quickly said, “No I didn’t tell him. I just told him when he came home a little bit ago.”

Yvette shook her head, “I can’t believe you didn’t even talk to us about it first,” She believed him, that’s good, “We are your best friends,” His only friends right now actually, “How could you not tell us?”

Rhys looked at the floor. He could look extremely powerful and rich people in the eyes while he did business and made false promises, but for some reason he couldn’t look at Yvette. She looked so upset and this is the first time he has seen her in years after he crashed Helios. It both wasn’t and was his fault that Yvette died. He never let her out of the cage, but how could he have known that Helios would come crashing down? He barely got out of there himself, so he had no time to go get Yvette. If he just let her out would she have still been alive? He has been thinking about that for years. 

Finally, Rhys looked back up to her and said, “Listen, I know that what I did was wrong. I should have told you what I was doing, but I knew that you and Vaughn wouldn’t like it at all. There’s a good chance that I might die, but I will try my absolute best. I’ve seen the pattern in what made Jack kill them in the first place,” He hasn’t. He’s pretty sure Jack just gets bored, “And I won’t mess up like they did.” Rhys did his best to sound confident and he’s pretty sure it’s believable this time. He isn’t confident in his ability to be an assassin at all, but he is confident that he can at least save Yvette. Even if he dies there is a good chance Yvette will be alive regardless since he won’t be bringing down Helios.

Yvette just looked at him bitterly for a moment before scoffing and heading for their front door. She said over her shoulder, “I wish you thought about the people who actually care about you as much as you think about our boss.” Then she slammed the front door shut behind her leaving Rhys and Vaughn to awkwardly look where she once was. Rhys feels terrible for Yvette being mad at him, but at least she isn’t dead.

Vaughn sighed from where he was still sitting on the couch and then said, “That could have gone better.”

“Yeah well it probably went much better than if I told her the real reason I applied,” Rhys replied with a sigh of his own.

The other man nodded. “You’re right, I’m still upset about that, and I will continue to be upset about it until your ‘job’ is done… She won’t stay mad for too long. Who else will pay for her lunch?” He asked with a small smile. Bless Vaughn for always trying to make Rhys feel better. When he becomes CEO again he will make sure Vaughn is his vice president instead of the leader of some freaky cult.

“I hope she stops being mad before I die. It wouldn’t be great to have only one person at my funeral,” Rhys said with a half-smile and dragged himself towards his bedroom. He was serious about going to bed after talking to Yvette.

“I really don’t like joking about your death!” Vaughn called after him. 

Rhys ignored him and closed his bedroom door behind him. He took off his clothes until he was just in his underwear and set his alarm for 4:30 in the morning. That’s enough time to get ready so he can show up on time to his first official work day as Jack’s personal assistant. Rhys then went onto his bed and under the covers. Before he fell asleep he looked one last time at his bare walls.

Despite sleeping through most of yesterday, Rhys slept through the night without waking up. In fact, his alarm unpleasantly woke him up. Rhys groaned and moved to hit snooze on the alarm but froze when he realized why his alarm was set for 4:30 in the morning. His heart felt like it sunk into his chest at the thought of seeing Handsome Jack in person again. How many times would he get a gun pointed in his face today and live? None if he doesn’t get up soon and make him his damned coffee.

He gets up, gathers his things from his dresser, and goes to the shared bathroom to get a shower. Afterwards, he gets dressed and fixes his hair while constantly thinking about different scenarios that could happen today. Most of those scenarios involved dying in horrible ways.

The trip to Jack’s office was quicker this morning than yesterday. This time Rhys isn’t stalling nearly as much. And he needs to get there in time to get Jack’s coffee ready. There are three different guards here this morning. He has no idea if the loader bot is the same; it probably is, they don’t need sleep or whatever. They let him through after he explained that he was the new assistant. He was still pat down and searched anyway. In the elevator ride up he could once again see all of the hub of heroism. Only a handful of people were down there this early in the morning to get breakfast before their shift starts.

The elevator arrived at the same waiting room as yesterday and once again no one was there. Rhys let out a shaky breath and stepped over to behind his new desk. A quick glance at one of Rhys’ ECHO eyes’ many features told him that it was just under 5:30 AM. He had plenty of time to do what he needed to do. He stood in front of the coffee machine and got a pot of coffee ready. It should be done brewing in ten minutes.

Rhys watched the coffee machine for a few seconds. Maybe he could find a way to poison it. There isn’t anything particularly deadly in here right now. Could he smuggle in poison without getting caught? Maybe if he hides it in his arm’s wiring… or the traditional up-the-ass might work too. Rhys groaned and shook his head. Jack probably won’t fall for it. Knowing that paranoid jackass he would probably make Rhys drink it first every morning. He focused back onto the coffee machine. Is making coffee all he is allowed to do right now? He looked over his shoulder to the computer on his desk. The username and password are right there written on a little sticky note. Surely, he can get familiar with his work station, right?

Despite a voice in the back of his head telling him not to, Rhys left where he was standing and sat in the desk chair. It was still as comfortable as he remembered. He is only going to look around for twenty minutes or so. Once the clock reaches 5:50 he will make everything look like where it was originally and go back to standing in front of the coffee machine. 

After finding the power button on the computer, he turns the computer on and types in the username and password on the sticky note. Unsurprisingly, the computer lets him log in and he’s greeted with a desktop. The desktop picture is just the Hyperion logo on top of a dull yellow background. There are the icons on it that come with every computer like the ones for the ECHOnet, recycling bin, calendar, and email. There are also the usual icons for Hyperion workers like the announcement system and the projects database. Those brought back memories that Rhys forgot he had. It seemed like forever ago when he last used a Hyperion computer.

Immediately Rhys noticed the new icons that he hasn’t seen on any work computer before. There is an icon of what looks like a little cartoon of Jack pointing to a clock and the label under it is ‘Jack’s schedule’. That seems self-explanatory. Leave it to the biggest narcissist on Helios to make someone create little icons of himself for his personal assistant’s computer. Rhys is more surprised that there aren’t little cartoons of Jack everywhere else on Helios. He would have ripped his ECHO eye out way earlier if he saw little Jacks every time he used it. There is another little icon of what looks like Jack in a box with the label ‘Elevator control’ under it. Why would Rhys need to control the elevator? The only thing he can think of is to shut it down during lunch time, but wouldn’t that be the security guard’s job? There is only one more icon with a little Jack on it. It’s just Jack winking and it says ‘contact’ under it. Rhys wants to never contact Jack, but that will probably be impossible. Just until he can kill him. He shudders while thinking about the gun pointed to his head yesterday.

Rhys leaned back in the comfy office chair and let his eyes dart over each little icon. He kind of wants to check out what everything has to offer. Maybe because he works next to Jack he will be able to see the ‘special projects’ in the projects database. Looking at those could be fun. Rhys used to only be able to access the coding department’s projects and a few from different departments here and there if the projects overlapped. He technically doesn’t have a department he belongs to anymore… Does Henderson even know that he doesn’t work there anymore? Rhys sure as hell didn’t bother to tell him. Jack had always been paranoid so maybe he won’t be able to look at any projects, secret or otherwise. 

The ‘contact’ icon kept drawing Rhys to it. When he was younger… no he is that age. When he was the old Rhys that hadn’t been almost killed by his dead boss, he might have actually killed someone for a chance to get a ‘contact Handsome Jack’ button. What would he have even said to the man back then… or now technically? Probably something stupid and embarrassing that would have gotten him strangled anyway. The first thing AI Jack did when they met was try to strangle him, so it’s a good possibility. Why did he ever look up to that psychopath? 

He idly moved the mouse around the screen wondering if he should look at anything at all. Anything that could even slightly annoy Jack could ruin everything. He doesn’t have a second chance at this so being careless would be incredibly stupid. He briefly looked to the clock then back to the mouse on the screen. However, he does have ten minutes left until he said he would go back to mindlessly looking at the coffee machine. Would Jack really know if he looked at something?

_Curiosity killed the cat…_

Maybe Jack won’t notice if Rhys just looked at the normal and unassuming things. Deciding to go for something safe Rhys double clicked on the recycling bin. Did Jack permanently delete everything from the old assistant’s time on this computer, or are the files just in here waiting to be deleted? Maybe the assistants didn’t save anything here and it’ll be empty. It’s possible since it seems like everything an assistant would need to do is on the desktop. 

Rhys was mildly surprised to see that there were in fact files in the recycling bin. Lots of files actually. Most seem to be deleted notes taken by the last assistant. Some of the files were folders with normal sounding titles for an assistant. A few of the deleted items were MP3s of what Rhys assumes were different songs. 

As Rhys scrolled through the deleted files, he noticed that some of the deleted notes were titled in a different writing style than the previous notes. Were these notes from the assistant before the last assistant? Did Jack just never bother to delete any of his assistants’ files permanently? Why would he not delete them all properly? Jack isn’t technologically dumb, he’s made many of Hyperion’s programs, so he should know how to delete files off of a computer. 

Deciding to look through these later, Rhys scrolled to the top of the recycling bin. That was when he noticed a file he hadn’t noticed at first. It was the last deleted file in the bin, deleted yesterday to be precise. When Rhys’ tired mind finally comprehended what he was looking at it felt like everything froze. He couldn’t breathe. He was afraid the if he moved the file would delete itself. What is a program with _that_ name doing on Jack’s personal assistant’s computer?

**4N631.exe**

_…But satisfaction brought it back._

Rhys tilted his head just a nudge to the side while continuing to be perplexed. His entire half-assed plan of sneaking in poison just went out the window if that is what he thinks it could be. The program in question has no icon with it. Just a blank file icon. He snaps his head back straight. He knows for sure that at some point he will need to open that program. However, Rhys keeps the knowledge in his head that the programs was just deleted yesterday. Is this what got the last assistant killed? Is this what got all of the assistant’s killed? It makes a lot more sense if that was the case. 

He can’t be seen snooping around this program. Wait… What if Jack is monitoring what he does on the screen. It’s a huge possibility that Jack can see what he’s doing right now. Jack would no doubt kill him without question if he even hovers the mouse over the icon of Angel’s program. He needs to-

The large double doors separating Rhys from Jack’s office are suddenly pulled open violently without warning and the man in question is suddenly in front of Rhys smiling devilishly. The doors slam loudly onto Jack’s office walls like the right one did yesterday when Rhys pushed it too hard.

A lot of things happened in a matter of seconds.

First Rhys’ entire body tensed and jumped causing the office chair he is sitting in to roll backwards a bit. Then the chair slammed forcefully into the counter behind him. Jack’s smile faltered slightly and then turned into a surprised frown. Jack then seemed to take large step forward and grabbed Rhys by the neck of his shirt and pulled him forward so that he was leaning over the desk. Rhys closed his eyes, knowing that a bullet to the brain will probably come next. But that isn’t what comes next. What comes next is the sound of liquid splashing behind him. Rhys dared to open his eyes and look behind him with Jack still holding him forward. He sees that the entire pot of steaming hot coffee is now coating the back of the office chair and is pooling on the seat. It smells great but looks like an expensive mistake.

Rhys swallowed audibly and turned his head back around to face his boss. Now he’ll probably die. But hey, at least he didn’t get burned by his own fuck up.

Jack, still frowning, looked over Rhys’ shoulder to the mess on the chair. Jack pulled back, looked at Rhys and asked, “Ya’ alright, pumpkin? Didn’t get any on you, did you?” Rhys didn’t answer. Did Jack not care about his coffee or his chair being ruined? He glanced to the computer screen for a split second before meeting Jack’s eyes again. The recycling bin screen is still up. “Well you’re not screaming so I’m gonna guess that you’re fine. Just another day being the people’s hero, no big,” Jack said, smiled again, and finally released Rhys’ shirt.

Rhys stumbled backwards a bit and reached out to grab the computer monitor. He pretended like he was using it for support, but instead he stealthily pressed the power button on the monitor, temporarily erasing all evidence of Rhys’ exploration. 

Jack moved forward to grab him again but stopped when he saw that the monitor wasn’t going anywhere. “Jeez, kid, if you tumble anymore I’m gonna think that you had a stroke last night or something and didn’t tell me… If that actually happened then thanks for picking me over your own health,” Jack said with a wink. Rhys could only try to will his pulse to calm down as he slowly took his hands off the monitor and looked up at Jack. He opened his mouth to say something but couldn’t find any words in his mouth. 

Then Jack said after Rhys just gawked at him, “Well usually I’d be all pissed off about my coffee not being ready, but it was partially my fault. I came early, not something I ever usually do if you catch my drift,” Jack huffed a laugh at his own joke and continued, “and you got spooked. I should have known. I have that effect on people. Anyway, I was planning on us going around the station a bit so you can get a feel for the place. We can get coffee on the way, so I’m not super pissed off.”

Jack was already on the move to the elevator and the doors opened for him without the man doing anything. Rhys’ mind could hardly function properly as he moved to catch up with him. He was still shaking slightly at the thing that just happened, but Jack treated it as nothing. 

Once in the elevator with Jack, the doors closed, and they started to head down. Rhys looked behind him, but the office wasn’t there anymore. He turned back around the face the same way Jack was facing and asked, “But… but aren’t you mad about your chair? It looked expensive.” Hopefully his question didn’t remind Jack that he should murder Rhys.

“Eh… It was expensive. Now it obviously isn’t,” He looked at Rhys with an angry scowl before smiling again, “Just kidding. I mean it really isn’t expensive anymore, but I’m not mad at you. If I was mad at you, you probably wouldn’t be with me in this elevator. You’d be taking your own elevator… to Pandora. You’d be airlocked is what I’m trying to say here… A robot will replace the stupid chair while we’re out.” Rhys was horrified at the man so casually talking about his death, but not surprised.

Rhys looked forward as the Hub of Heroism was now in plain view to the two people in the elevator. There are more people out now preparing to go to work. They’re all going to see Rhys in his new position. If this was past Rhys (well he is past Rhys but not really) he would probably be glad to get all of the attention and to be seen with Handsome Jack on top of that, but now he’d like nothing more than to go to his own office at Atlas. Maybe he’ll live through this and get Atlas and Hyperion. That’s a nice thought.

His attention was brought back to Jack after he asked Rhys suddenly, “So does your arm shoot like a gun?” 

Rhys looked at him like he was a complete dumbass before smoothing out his features when he remembered that Jack could kill him anytime he wanted to. “No. It’s a Hyperion model and none of the Hyperion models, or any models from any company that I know of, have arms that shoot bullets,” Rhys answered skeptically. Jack should know that if he pays attention to every project that Hyperion works on, which he should. Rhys paid attention to everything when he was the president of Atlas. He is definitely a better president than Jack.

Jack looked away from Rhys’ metallic arm and back to the door of the elevator. “Shame. I should make that a thing. I could if I asked for it to be a thing,” He said. 

Rhys rolled his eyes and replied, “I have no doubt that you could do that.”

Jack didn’t acknowledge what Rhys said and said, “I guess it’s a good thing we didn’t make those yet. Robot arm that shoots bullets would probably get past the dumbass guards. At least they know what guns look like.”

“I don’t know. One of them asked me if it shot bullets yesterday,” Rhys spoke. This conversation is oddly reminiscent to how Rhys and AI Jack used to talk. Jack not really listening and Rhys chiming in here and there. Nakayama must have been one of Jack’s more obsessed fans to capture his likeness as well as he had. 

His boss hummed and replied with, “Well maybe they can be reliable every once in a while. I’m still alive so they must be doing something right.” Rhys bit his lip. If the guards were just a tad more useless, he wouldn’t have to worry as much about getting his job done. Maybe he could lure Jack out of the office. They’re going outside now so it doesn’t look like it would be too difficult. 

The elevator touched down at the hub and Rhys could see eyes turning to face the elevator through the one-way glass. Some of the people outside started to walk faster and others slowed down. How would they feel about Rhys if he took over? Would they fear him like Jack? Or respect him like Atlas did?

The doors opened and the guards outside stood to the said to let their boss through. Jack walked with pride past the guards and into the hub with Rhys following right behind him. He wouldn’t dare walk beside Jack. The douchebag might think he was trying to one-up him or something. 

Now all eyes were on the pair walking straight to a café. Rhys couldn’t see Jack’s face, but he was sure the man was smirking. He loved attention if his various statues and posters were anything to go by. Rhys wasn’t this narcissistic when he was in charge of Atlas. Sure, his face was on things, but not as much as Jack’s is… He thinks. Rhys can hear the whispers of his coworkers. He knows they’re talking about him, probably already making bets on his lifespan.

Once they rolled up to the café, the line that was already there scattered, leaving Handsome Jack to go right up to the counter. Jack waved to one “lucky” patron before strolling up to take his order. Rhys didn’t know where he should stand so he just stood behind him like he has been. Before Jack spoke to the woman at the counter he looked back at Rhys and asked, “Want anything, cupcake?”

Rhys was kind of surprised that Jack offered him a coffee. It was probably a joke. If he said yes Jack would probably laugh at him or pour it over his head and then everyone else would laugh. Well Jack might not pour it over his head since he seemed to have saved him from a similar fate earlier, but he would probably still laugh. “Um, no, thank you,” Rhys finally said.

Jack snorted and turned back around. “Just get me a large regular black coffee. And a…” Jack looked behind his shoulder to Rhys again. He studied him for a moment before looking into the slightly nervous man’s eyes and turning back around. “And a cappuccino with an extra shot of espresso,” Jack finally said. Rhys shuddered from both Jack checking him out and the thought that he might actually pour it over Rhys’ head. 

The woman nodded with fervor and begun making the drinks herself. Rhys was pretty sure the cashier usually doesn’t make the drinks themselves. Very quickly, but with obvious care, the drinks were made and passed to Jack who held out his gold credit card to her. She shook her head, “Just take them sir, I will pay for them out of my gratitude for you.”

Jack laughed, but otherwise said nothing as he pocketed his card and took the drinks. He handed Rhys the cappuccino and began walking out of the café. Rhys followed. “Shit like that happens all the time. Don’t these losers know I’m the richest person here?” Rhys hummed an ‘I don’t know’ as his mind was elsewhere. The guy ‘bought’ him a drink and correctly guessed that Rhys liked sweets by just looking at him. He looked down at himself. He isn’t pudgy by any means, he’s actually pretty lanky, though he does look softer than Jack.

Once outside of the store Rhys looked back up and said, “You didn’t need to get me a drink. I appreciate it, but-“ He was cut off by Jack.

“Don’t give me that crap. You know you wanted a drink, but just didn’t want to ask.” He was right but Rhys would never tell him that. “Just tell me, did I get it right? You look like you’d enjoy a sweeter drink. And you look like you spent all night worrying about your handsome new boss. That’s why I got you a little extra caffeine.”

Rhys actually slept for a long time, but he is very tired at the moment. Probably the stress. He looked away towards the crowd of people glancing at them in awe as they went by. “I do like sweets,” He finally said.

“Ha! Knew it,” Jack said with glee. Then he stopped and Rhys almost bumped into him. “Don’t spill it, pumpkin, I know you’re clumsy,” Jack said after he turned to face Rhys. Rhys rolled his eyes before he could think not to. “Don’t roll your eyes at me, I already told you not to be a moody teen,” Jack said with a huff. 

Rhys perked up and quickly said, “I’m sorry… Sir I-“

“Yeah, Yeah, whatever. We’re going to go around Helios and I’m gonna show you some of my favorite places around this hunk of metal. It’s all my favorite, but just the important ones. You’re just going to behave, listen, and drink your drink. You can’t screw that up, huh?” Jack asked semi-condescendingly. Rhys didn’t answer so Jack said, “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’. Follow me, and don’t spill anymore coffee on my nice furniture. First up: let’s go hello to your old boss.” With that Jack turned back around and strolled down the nearest exit to the hub. Rhys groaned quietly to himself as he followed. This will either be very fun but for the wrong reasons or traumatizing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't how I was going to end this chapter. I wanted to get this out soon and if I would have kept working on it it would have been about 15,000 words if I made it end how I wanted it to. Hopefully next chapter will come out soon and it won't take me 3 months. But I will be playing Borderlands 3. It won't change anything about the story, but I'm just super excited.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack and Rhys go on tour, feat. Henderson, Vasquez, ya boi Vinny, and that's it. Seriously this was the chapter I been thinking about for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry she's a little shorter than the other chapters. I couldn't find a way to make it longer without just adding in some nonsense.

Jack lead Rhys down the familiar wide hallways towards where his old job used to be. Everyone in the halls stopped walking and stared when they noticed Jack walking by. Rhys is still very uncomfortable about the attention. When he was in charge of Atlas, he loved attention like this, it made him feel powerful, but now he feels the very opposite of powerful. The looks he is being given is not ones of respect, but of pity. He would be more upset but looking at the people here only reminds him that most of them have been indirectly killed by him. For now, he keeps his eyes at Jack’s back as they walk.

Little did Jack know, Rhys hasn’t been to the place he is being led to in years. Rhys actually forgets what Henderson even looked like. He wore glasses, right? He’s pretty sure he wore glasses.

“Hey, pumpkin,” Rhys stops his train of thought when he hears Jack speak. He still isn’t used to that, Jack speaking that is. It makes his fight or flight instincts go off and with Jack it’ll almost always be flight. He refrains the urge to run and meets Jack’s eyes that are now boring into his. 

Rhys looks around everywhere but Jack and swallows before saying, “Are you talking… to me?”

Jack scoffs, “Duh, which other dumbass would I be talking to?” 

He would like it very much if Jack were still rotting on Pandora somewhere. He was just scolded by Jack a little while ago for saying something dumb, but the other man’s entire existence annoys the hell out of Rhys. He replied with, “Could be anybody, I don’t know. You own this entire space station and everyone on it.” He ignores the voice in his head yelling at him for saying something stupid, something he finds himself doing a lot lately. 

“Yeah, I know that, but do you know that?” Jack took a step towards Rhys, getting in his personal space, “Because you seem to be still pushing your luck with these occasional snarky comments. Don’t think that because I just hired you that I will hesitate to look for someone else to fill your position. I was having a good morning so far, but it seems like you don’t want it to stay that way. Do you want me to keep having a good morning, Rhysie?”

Rhys, wide-eyed and mouth hanging open, just manages to nod. He is both terrified and furious, but he only lets his terror show. It’s really his own fault if he died at this point. He knows very well how Jack’s temper is, even if it isn’t the exact same Jack he once knew. Maybe he would feel less inclined to be a prick towards Jack if Jack wasn’t a prick towards him all those years ago after Rhys trusted him. And those things he did to all of those innocent people were pretty shitty too.

Jack smiles condescendingly and pats Rhys’ face with the hand that isn’t holding a cup of coffee. “Good. Now that we have that out of the way…” Jack hold out his cup to Rhys. “This should be cool enough by now to take a sip.”

The two men both just stare at the cup for a moment in silence before Jack sighs and says, “I know this is going to sound shitty, especially since I just let you off the hook, but my life is worth more than yours and I need you to make sure this isn’t spiked with anything nasty.” 

Rhys should have expected nothing less from the number one most paranoid asshole in the galaxy. Afraid of what might come out of his mouth this time if he speaks, Rhys wordlessly takes the cup and sips from it before handing it back to Jack. He manages to not shudder at the bitter taste. To wash it down, Rhys sips from his own coffee cup. The sweetness instantly drowns out the unpleasant taste. Jack smiles again and takes the cup with the bitter black liquid back. Then he looks down at the cup questioningly.

“You don’t have herpes or mono, right?” Jack asks with mild disgust.

“I’m clean,” Rhys replies simply while managing to be only a little offended. He’s not even worried about the possibility of currently being poisoned. It would honestly be a blessing if it weren’t for the fact that Rhys needs to save the entire human race. It would be more satisfying to die any other way than at the hands of Jack. 

Jack nods and takes his own sip from the cup. Rhys feels gross at the thought of them indirectly kissing. At this point he’s just trying to find ways to hate Jack more. “I should really make that a question on the application, ‘Do you have a transmittable disease?’, yeah that’s pretty important,” Jack says casually. He’s already thinking about his next assistant. That isn’t a good sign. Maybe if Rhys hits Jack hard enough with his metal arm, he won’t have to worry about being murdered by Jack.

Without speaking, Jack turns back around and continues down the hallway. Rhys continues to follow until the reach the entrance to the programming department. Jack stops and speaks over his shoulder with a hint of amusement in his voice, “Hope you’re ready to hand in your letter of resignation, kiddo.”

Panic rises in Rhys’ chest. He struggles to say, “Uh I don’t… I didn’t write a-“

Jack cuts him off by saying, “Yeah I figured you probably didn’t. Doesn’t matter. You can just tell him that you quit for someone _much_ more handsome. It’s rude to just leave him hanging.” 

Rhys compels himself to not make a comment about Jack’s manners and follows the man inside. When he sees the interior of the office space his breath is momentarily taken away. The nostalgia is overwhelming right now. He can’t help but look around and gawk at all the little things that he forgot. The shitty small chairs that Rhys remembers complaining about are still here. Cindy, who always arrives early is here too. She glances at him for a moment and smiles before quickly looking back down in horror when she sees who he’s with.

His new boss doesn’t bother to announce their arrival and continues to progress through the department. Rhys continues to look around the familiar space on their way to his old boss’ office. Crazy to think how all of this stuff is supposed to be in a dust heap somewhere thousands of miles below where they are now. He wonders if it’ll find its way there again someday. Hopefully not.

The pair arrive outside of Henderson’s office and Jack just barges in without making their presence known. “Hey, Henderson, good to see you, how have you been?” Jack asks in a mocking sort of way with his hands on his hips. On his hip is a bright yellow Hyperion pistol. Rhys imagines himself reaching for it.

Henderson stiffens the moment Jack bursts through the door. Oh, wow he doesn’t wear glasses. He looks briefly between Jack and Rhys before giving a weak laugh and says, “Oh I’m alright, how are you Handsome Jack, sir?” He sounds nervous, but not terrified like most Hyperion employees would be at seeing Jack. Henderson has met with Jack on more than one occasion since he is the head of the security division of the programming department. Rhys almost had that job once, before Vasquez murdered Henderson. It’s entirely possible that Vasquez would still be alive in the present/future if he just minded his own business. Is it bad that Rhys doesn’t care that he died? Because he kind of doesn’t.

“Oh, just peachy, especially since I recently replaced my old assistant. Did you hear about that by any chance?” Jack asked with the same amount of disdain. It’s a little worrying that Jack is enjoying this conversation so much. That could only mean that he’s planning something.

“I did read that email you sent to everyone yesterday,” His eyes flickered over to meet Rhys’ before going back to meet Jack’s. Rhys hated the now familiar feeling of pity that he recognized in those eyes.

Jack moved the stand off the side so that he could see both Rhys and Henderson. Neither of the two men liked the smirk on Jack’s face. “Good. Then you can probably see that my new assistant is your former employee here,” He said while gesturing to Rhys with one hand, specifically the non-coffee holding hand.

“I see that indeed. Congratulations, Rhys. I hope you enjoy this generous opportunity,” Henderson said with his voice portraying no emotion. Henderson is probably disappointed to lose such a hardworking employee. At least that’s what Rhys would like to think. More likely Henderson will miss the ass-kissing.

Rhys kept his eyes on Elpis behind Henderson when he replied with, “Me too.” His voice held the same amount of emotion as Henderson’s had. 

“Alrighty, Henderson, could you do me a favor and stand in front of your desk?” Jack asked now gesturing to a spot on the floor. Rhys gave Jack a questioning look, but Jack wasn’t paying attention to Rhys yet. His eyes were on Henderson and his expression showed some anticipation. If Jack kills Henderson right now, Rhys doesn’t even know how he’ll react. He has seen countless deaths while he was CEO, but something about Jack killing someone is different. It feels more like a big deal compared to one of his soldiers killing a bandit. 

Henderson gives Jack a pleading look. When Jack doesn’t say anything, but continues to gesture towards the floor, Henderson moves to that spot. He’s visibly shaking. Rhys feels sorry for him, but he can’t save him. If he does anything now, then Jack will just be even more suspicious of him.

Jack takes a drink of his coffee and grins even wider. Then dramatically while pointing at Henderson, Jack says, “Now the reason Rhysie here decided to take up this job offer is because he doesn’t like what you do in your free time.” Oh god he’s making it out to be Rhys’ fault that he’s about to die. That’s just horrible.

Henderson just gives a confused look at that until Jack says, “I’m talking about the kittens, Kiddo.”

Now Henderson’s eyes go wide. He’s both confused and outraged. “How do you even know about that? I’ve kept that a secret from almost everyone!” Henderson half-shouts. 

Jack makes a ‘tsk’ noise and shakes his head. “Well you did a terrible job, even I knew about that. I mean I know about everything that happens on this station, but I just happened to stumble upon you and a bunch of kittens and let it happen.” Jack says and then continues with, “However, Rhys didn’t like it. So, Rhys, tell him how you feel.” Both men were now looking at Rhys. Rhys looked between the two of them with apprehension. 

“Huh?” Was all that came from Rhys. He has no idea what is happening anymore. This is the worst foreplay to a murder ever. 

Jack nudged his head towards Henderson and said, “Tell him how you feel, pumpkin, don’t hesitate. This is a no judgement zone here.”

Rhys knows damn well this isn’t a no judgement zone, but he has to do what Jack says so… “I like kittens and I don’t like people who hurt kittens, so I don’t like you?” Rhys said it more like a question than how he is supposed to really feel.

“Awesome. Give him some more,” Jack said now with his arms crossed and an encouraging smile on his face. 

“Uh… You’re also racist and that’s horrible. Just the worst ever in general,” Rhys says with slightly more confidence. He’s still anxious about the inevitable that’s coming though. 

After another drink of coffee, Jack says still encouragingly, “Hell yeah, Rhys, really give it to him.” 

Rhys looked in his brain for reasons to hate Henderson briefly before he found one, “And… and why did you give Vasquez that raise instead of me? I worked way harder than that idiot, you dickhead!”

“That was last year!” Henderson says in a slight panic. Well… Rhys doesn’t remember what’s supposed to be current. He’s from the future after all.

“Woo! Now that’s what I’m talking about,” Jack says from the sidelines. Then he says, “Now punch him, Rhys.”

Rhys looks at Jack blankly, “What?”

“Punch him. I know you want to. Punch that man like he punches kittens. Bonus points if it’s with the robot arm,” Jack says with excitement. 

The kitten thing and the racist thing is pretty terrible. Plus, if he doesn’t punch Henderson, Jack might punch Rhys instead. Rhys pulls back his metal arm and Henderson flinches as it connects with his jaw. Rhys himself flinches at the cracking sound. Henderson falls to the ground and puts both of his hands on his jaw. Jack laughs like this is the funniest thing in the galaxy. Rhys looks with disgust as he sees that the man’s jaw is dislocated, and his lip is split. The wonders of technology.

When Jack recovers from his laughing fit, he stands up straight, takes another sip of his coffee, and begins to move as if this were another normal day at work. First, he steps over Henderson’s still-alive body and then proceeds out the door with a, “Come on, cupcake!”

Rhys scrambles to catch up with him without another glance at Henderson. He’s shocked that the man is still alive, but pleased. 

While leaving Rhys groans inwardly as he sees Vasquez look at him with shock and then morph into delight. He hears the asshole snort with laughter while Rhys was heading out the door.

The rest of the Helios tour was actually not really eventful. Rhys got a look into R&D and a look at one of those tentacle monsters on Pandora swallow a whole person. Thank any divine being out there that Jack was pleased with just watching that from afar and making Rhys record it on his ECHO-eye for him to view again later. Rhys still has no idea what research is being developed there. 

Then the two went to the accounting department where Rhys spent the entire time hoping they didn’t see Vaughn. They didn’t, so it went well with the only incident being Jack threatening the department head for the 0.02% decrease in profits last term. 

Finally, they went to robotics where Rhys spent most of their time there examining each loader bot they passed by trying to see if it was his loader bot or not. It was impossible to tell because they all looked the same, but in reality, his loader bot probably hasn’t been constructed yet. Jack spent a good portion in robotics comparing Rhys’ arm to robot arms. It wasn’t very fun and now Rhys’ arm has a cramp in it from holding it out to Jack for so long. Jack was surprisingly gentle with his robot arm despite seeing that it can bust someone’s jaw open. It made Rhys feel weird to see the Handsome Jack being gentle with him. The very opposite of the time Jack tried to shove a whole robot into his flesh and then parade in it. 

After the trip to robotics, Jack took the two of them back up to his office with takeout in their hands. After making Rhys eat a bite of his food and a sip of his drink, he mentioned that he has a meeting scheduled today with the head of security. Usually Jack’s assistant would be there with Jack in the meeting and take notes, but instead Rhys will sit out at his own desk. “Just want you to get acquainted with your setup before you get overwhelmed with the big boy stuff,” Jack said at the time. 

Rhys is currently sitting at his desk scrolling through all of the programs on his computer. His formal list of job duties is in the “contact jack” program. The list is just basic assistant stuff with the occasional things like “contact maintenance if there has been an un/expected death”.

Jack gave him full reign to explore and do whatever he wanted to the office or computer. The only other thing Jack said was, “Don’t destroy the place, and don’t look at porn.” To which Rhys scoffed at and Jack giving him a warning look. 

Rhys is currently doing everything with the computer except looking at the recycling bin. He changed the background picture to a picture of a nice landscape from Promethea, a place he misses dearly. He watched a funny moments compilation from his favorite ECHO drama on the ECHOnet. He was disappointed that they forgot a few scenes until he remembered that those scenes weren’t even made yet. He also looked a bit at Jack’s schedule. He stopped looking at the schedule when most of it was just “saving the galaxy” or “kicking bandit ass”.

He’s too afraid that Jack can see everything he sees on the computer. If he knew for sure that Jack couldn’t monitor him, he would be looking at that 4N631 program in the trash bin. At first, he thought the program was a trap to catch people looking specifically for Angel, but Rhys ruled that out after realizing that pretty much no one in the universe except Jack knows Angel is a person and a siren at that. So how and why is a program called 4N631 on his computer? Rhys is even more afraid to try and hack the computer to see if it’s being monitored. All of Jack’s computers are heavily protected as he’s witnessed firsthand before. 

He’s brought out of his thoughts when he hears the elevator moving. Glancing at the time on the computer told him it was 2:28 PM. Just in time for Jack’s meeting with the head of security. What is he supposed to do in this situation? Does he direct him to Jack? Does he call Jack with the comm system on the wall? Well if Jack gets mad at him it’ll be his own fault for not giving Rhys instructions. 

The elevator doors open and a thin, tall man walks through the doors. He looks kind of young, maybe close to Rhys’ age… current age or 26 not his past… future age of 34. And his hair is longer than most men on Helios’ hair. He isn’t the type of man you would expect to be head of security, maybe head of accounting, but not security. 

He moves forward with a semi-confident expression. Rhys watches him from where he is sitting at his desk, in awe of how he seems unafraid of meeting Handsome Jack. Almost everyone Rhys has seen today had little variety to their reaction when seeing Jack; they were all scared or nervous to some extent with a little admiration sprinkled in there. 

The head of security stopped in front of Rhys’ desk, right before the doors to Handsome Jack’s office. He turned his head towards Rhys and looked him in the eye. He smiled warmly, something Rhys was not expecting. Something else Rhys was _definitely_ not expecting was the man to pull his shirt up to reveal a small pistol tucked into his pants. He winked at Rhys and put his finger up to his lips and softly went, “shhh.” Then he let his shirt drape back over the exposed gun. 

Rhys was frozen in place. He understood exactly what this man is going to try to do. He’s going to kill Handsome Jack. He probably showed Rhys the gun as a way of saying “I’m going to save your life if you cooperate”. This isn’t going to end well. Nothing is ever this easy for Rhys.

Just then a ‘ding’ sound was made, and an email popped up on Rhys’ computer. It was from Jack and it said, “I got the notification that the elevator is here, just send Vinny in. I’m ready for him.” He probably isn’t ready to be shot, so poor wording on Jack’s part.

Rhys looked back up to Vinny and said, “You can go in.” Is he really going to let this play out? Hopefully Jack can’t see them through a camera right now and see Rhys betraying him. What if this guy takes over Hyperion? That’s what Rhys wanted to do. Well maybe he can convince Vinny to give him the Atlas certificate for just being a good sport about the assassination. 

Vinny smiles a bit wider, feeling triumphant he says, “Thank you,” and walks through the doorway to Jack. Of course, he correctly pushes the doors open the first time and doesn’t make a fool of himself.

The doors swing shut, blocking Rhys’ view of Jack’s office. Despite that, he is still watching the door. He expects to hear gunshots any minute now. His heart is racing for some reason, he isn’t even in danger. His mind is also racing with thoughts and worries going by every second. What if Vinny is just as bad as Jack? Then nothing would change at all. What if Vinny is with another corporation? Then Rhys would get no chance at Atlas or Hyperion. What about Angel? What would happen to her if Jack is dead? Jack is the only one who is supposed to know about her, and she’s strapped to a huge Eridium machine on Pandora. 

Rhys is surprised to find himself standing up. He has to do something. Shaking his head, Rhys leaves his desk and moves in front of the double doors. Unbelievable. The whole goal was to kill Handsome Jack and now Rhys is going to save him.

Rhys panics more as the seconds go by in silence. Is Jack’s office sound-proof? What if it already happened? 

Before his heart can give out, Rhys grabs the nearest blunt object he can find, a small tree in a pot by his desk. Oh god, why does it feel like a real tree? There isn’t sunlight on this station. It’s so heavy. This is a bad weapon.

Then he closes his eyes and rushes forward, tree in his hands like a battering ram, and burst through the doors with a loud bang like the first time he was in this office. Then he was in the dimly lit office. He didn’t know he was screaming until he noticed the only other sound was the water flowing from the fountains. 

He opened his eyes and still screaming, he throws the tree as hard as he can. The tree landed about ten feet in front of Rhys and the pot shattered revealing dirt and roots. Holy shit, that’s a real tree. The tree landed nowhere near where the two men were. The men were on the second floor and the tree mess is on the first floor. Rhys forgot about the different level.

Rhys stopped screaming and now Jack, who was still very much alive, was looking at Rhys with stunned fury. Vinny was looking at Rhys with stunned terror. Rhys was looking at both of them with stunned embarrassment… and also terror. 

“Rhys, what the HELL-“

Rhys cut off Jack by pointing at Vinny and shouting, “He has a gun!”

Jack’s face showed more surprise, his dichromatic eyes were wide open. “What?!” Jack yelled before very quickly grabbing his gun holstered on his hip.

Vinny swore and reached for his own gun, but before it was even out of his pants, Jack shot a bullet through his skull with ease. Rhys jumped at the noise but couldn’t look away as Vinny’s body fell backwards and hit the ground. Rhys now couldn’t see it anymore since he was still on the first level. He was shaking. What happens now? According to his instructions he needs to call maintenance, but honestly, he can’t do anything right now but stare up at Jack, the man who he just potentially saved.

Jack stared deeply at the body while breathing deeply a few times. He had streaks of Vinny’s blood on his face, not a lot, but definitely noticeable. Then he took the gun still in his hand and shot the body three more time while shouting various swear words. 

Seemingly satisfied with his work, Jack wiped his face once, the blood now smeared on his cheek. Then he stepped over the body, much like he did with Henderson earlier today, and took heavy steps towards Rhys. His eyes were determined, but his face held no emotion.

Rhys wanted to run, he didn’t know what Jack was doing. He can’t even tell how Jack is feeling right now and he isn’t used to that. Usually Jack was an open book, but now Rhys is beginning to learn that maybe he really doesn’t know Jack like he thought. He stays still, hoping Jack will just ignore him.

He doesn’t. Jack stands right in front of Rhys and just looks at him. He looks at every part of Rhys’ face like he’s studying him. Rhys tries to not look at the blood on Jack’s face or the gun still in his hands. 

After what feels like hours, Jack sighs and looks Rhys in the eyes. He looks tired, Rhys is sure he looks tired too. “What was that, pumpkin?” Was all Jack asked, sounding just as tired as he looked.

Rhys didn’t know how to answer that, so he said simply, “I don’t know”. He is both relieved and disappointed that Jack is alive. Hopefully that won’t be his only opportunity to have Jack die.

Jack looks behind him for just a moment, “Did you really need to do the thing with the plant?” He sounds a bit more amused now. Back to being the Jack Rhys knew.

He couldn’t stop himself from laughing as he said, “Probably not, but I had to do something.” The tension was quickly leaving his body.

Jack joined him and laughed as well, “You could have just told me he had a gun. That would have had the exact same effect with one less dead plant.”

“How is it even alive? There’s no sunlight here,” Rhys said between laughs. He felt kind of high, the good giggly kind of high.

“The lights on Helios emulate sunlight, you dumb-shit,” Jack answered, still laughing.

The two continued to laugh for seemingly no reason until they awkwardly stopped. Then Jack sighed again before saying, “Well, I’ll call clean-up… Good job today, Rhysie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Hope you enjoy this thing I wrote. If you did like it then consider leaving a comment and subscribing for email notifications because I never consistently upload on a schedule.


End file.
